


Creator

by Editor1



Series: Editor [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: A little girl becomes a god and the world goes to shit, Abusive Relationships, Angels, Angst and Tragedy, Demons and Nightclubs, Dubious Morality, F/M, Fantasy, Fire Demon, Fire Powers, Good vs Evil, Psychopath, Rape, References to Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, Science Fiction, Talking Cat Sidekick, The cat is gay, Universe Building, angelic hierarchy, evil god, mental health
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-01-13 09:22:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 18
Words: 118,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21241796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Editor1/pseuds/Editor1
Summary: So, let me get this straight. A little girl becomes a God, decides she's had about enough of this shit, runs off to some non existent universe to make her own world, and ends up fucking everything up. Sound about right?Well, you missed the part where the world hinges on her own happiness.Or that she's a psychopath.Or that conflict is the only way to keep her entertained.





	1. Prologue

It was a nice looking garden setup, everything you wanted. Had a perfect wooden upper tier for the basil and oregano that hung off the side of the house, and then you had the tomatoes and the rest of the bigger vegetables just underneath that, allowing the drip down of any extra water. But what was really, really nice, were the woodwork designs in between it all. Those whorls of knotted bark, the figures carefully carved into each corner, the way the pieces fit into each other so snugly that they didn’t even need nails… It was the dream. Abram favorited the picture for later reference, checked the time on his phone with half-lidded eyes, and swore. Shoveling all the leftover baked potato he could into his mouth, he shoved the rest of his uneaten lunch into the staff room fridge and raced past the rest of the braindead researchers. He was out the door and down the hall before anyone could give him a second glance. 

Time moved slower when Abram was in a hurry. The hallways, brightly lit and silvery with the faintest flicker, seemed unending as he flew past gurneys and chattering scientists. Maintenance workers in yellow hard hats watched him with the amused smirking of someone that didn’t have a schedule to keep, but he paid them no mind. They weren’t the ones getting paid forty an hour. They weren’t the ones that had something important to keep track of. A senior researcher was a respected position, and he intended to own it. 

Although they probably were never as late as he was. Damn, those gardening posts. He’d have to ask the wife when he got home about the types of wood he was considering. She couldn’t tell the difference between maple and pine, but she always loved to be included. Maybe he’d even let her choose what vegetables to plant. He’d have to word it carefully. If she got her way, it would be nothing but flowers. He was trying to save money here, and one couldn’t eat flowers. 

Another corner, then another, and after pushing past a group of blithe young researchers with nowhere to be, he was finally there. 

He pressed his card into the reader, punched in the code with fingers still sticky with butter, and stepped through the large metal doors that slid open for him. 

“Took you long enough,” Edward called back from the window. “You were about to miss the first test with the new dialing.” The observation deck was barren today, nothing left but a magazine on the ratty old couch that no one had bothered to replace yet. Next to it was the screen set up that allowed for multiple angles of the facility below. Through that, and through the large glass wall that took up most of the circular room, the lower regions were heavy with personnel. Through the speakers he could pick the sounds of chatter as maintenance staff were directed by a foreman with a white cap and a clipboard. They were on the last checkup, constantly looking back to the researchers on sight for confirmation. A man in overalls that Abram presumed to be the head of on-site engineering spoke with a few of the maintenance workers, waving his arms around emphatically as he gestured to a particular part of the machinery. The prelude to the initial testing was chaotic on the surface, but they’d long since gotten past this part of the trial and error. There was order behind the madness, and for good reason. 

“About to miss is not missing,” Abram argued. He swallowed the rest of the baked potato still in his mouth. 

“You just be glad that she isn’t hearing about this,” he muttered. Edward emphasized the “she”, and Abram knew exactly who he meant. He suppressed a shiver, and sidled up beside the man to watch the cacophony below.

“What about Mr. Laurent, will he be attending?” He asked, with a hopeful twang to his voice.

“Who knows?” Edward shrugged. “If she is here, he isn’t. If he is here, she isn’t. That is the way of things, unfortunately.” He drew back the long black curls of his hair to see his own clipboard better, and tapped at the pages with his pen. “I don’t expect much change, this time. I looked at the numbers. No change, I predict. No success.” 

“It stayed open for a few more seconds than before the last time,” Abram said. “Is that not a success?”

“Seven seconds is still only seven seconds. And rupture in the time space continuum accounted for any hope we might have had. We are still dealing with the fallout, and there is now a leak in dimensional travel we cannot even access. It is just there. Watching us. Annoying us.” Edward’s monotone voice made it difficult for Abram to judge when the man was joking. He assumed this was one of those times and laughed, clapping the man on the back.

“Why are we talking of work, eh? It’s only another experiment, and then back to the drawing board. They aren’t taking my advice, they aren’t taking your advice, so just stay here and watch. Sit on the couch, take time to relax. Did you have lunch yet? Have some lunch with me when this is over, my wife packed these lovely potatoes and pork chops. Those young idiots think they have all the answers, and they aren’t going to accept any other answer.” 

“They are infuriating.” 

Abram shrugged. “Were you not young? They speak the loudest, so they get heard the most. Mr. Laurent tries his best, but we must deal with the fact that she,” and he stressed the “she”, “will only listen to the people that SOUND right, instead of if they ARE right. So lets just stand back and chat. My wife and I are working on a garden.” He held up his phone to show Edward the post. “See this? I want to do this.” 

“Oh?” Edward feigned interest, but Abram didn’t mind. Though the man hadn’t looked away from the glass barrier, Abram still scrolled the phone down to show the oblivious man more pictures of different angles. 

“Yes, the missus and I have this plan, we’re going to add four garden boxes. I was thinking of maple, but then I saw these designs online, and now I’m not so sure. I do not know what wood this is, maybe teak? I hope it’s not teak.” He thoughtfully looked it over. “But perhaps a big investment will help later on. I wonder if I should get into wood working. Install it myself. I am sure I could get stencils for a few of these designs. Otherwise, it would be expensive, you know? Especially if it is teak. Perhaps I will use ash instead. Or keep with maple.” He pulled his phone back and rubbed his chin. 

“What designs are these?” Edward mumbled against his clipboard, making a face the more he read. 

“The statues in the corners, you know, to really make the garden pop. The fairies are nice in this picture.” Abram scrolled through other examples. “And this one has each corner having these spirals and such. With leaves on it. And then rocks along the edges as well, to help with the draining. Oh, what do you think this of this one? Pumpkins.” He held up the phone again, only to quickly stuff it back into his pocket when he heard a voice calling from the entrance to the observation deck. 

“So how is everyone doing today?” The man with slicked back hair and a smile far too wide asked the two men huddled around the window. “Wow,” he added. “It’s certainly empty in here.” 

“The others didn’t bother to show,” Edward muttered. “Sir.” 

Abram gave Edward a look, then smiled as bright as he could at his superior. 

“They are not believing in the success of the machine, sir, but we are here because we know it will work. It is only a matter of time. If you would take Edward here’s advice under scrutiny and he could show you the proposed numbers, perhaps we might see an even greater advancement than before.” 

The smiling man clapped Abram on the back, adjusted his tie, then turned his attention to the window. “Really? Well, I actually got someone else’s numbers run for this proposed experiment. A respected source, actually. So we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.” Edward deflated, but Mr. Laurent did not seem to notice. “Multidimensional wormholes and all that are a bit more trial and error that some people care to deal with, but I’m glad I’ve got you on my team.” He smiled a little longer at the chaos below, then turned to Abram. “What was your name again?” 

“Abram, sir.” 

“Abram, eh? You seem happy.” 

“I am glad to be a part of the team.” The man kept a firm hand on his phone in his pocket. 

Mr. Laurent watched Abram for a moment, then slowly narrowed his eyes as his smile faded. “Sounds familiar.” Before he could elaborate, he was interrupted by the announcement speaking through the static over the loudspeaker. 

“Experiment code one seven one seven underway,” the female voice broadcasted. “All unnecessary staff are advised to leave the floor for proper safety protocol, any found in violation will be forcefully escorted from the premises, thank you.” An alarm sounded alongside the voice, and the three men watched as the crowd of researchers and maintenance staff filed out through the respective exit doors, until it was only the few on-hand staff left to turn on the device in their radiation suits and worried looks. 

Edward tapped a few more times on his clipboard before Mr. Laurent took the pen and pocketed it. Edward regarded the man, then thought better and shrugged.

“Power to all processing units will begin at the next tone,” the monotone female voice continued. “This station will be temporarily unstable in reality dimensions. M-DTU will start at fifteen percent capacity for the purposes of warmup. Please be advised that the premises will be unsafe even at this point, and The Company is not liable for any workers compensation after the fact after this warning has sounded. Enter and work at your own risk, thank you.” 

Down below, lying at the feet of the three men, three pillars textured with metal bolts and wiring, covered in sheets of silver metal and connected on spools that all led to the central triangle platform, began to turn. The pillars were as thick as five men, slow at first, and making a deep, screeching noise that could be heard even through the radiation-proof glass. The rumbling could be felt under their very feet, despite the space between them and the machine. The outer portions of the pillars stood stable and unmoving as electrical signals processed through them, but inside the alloyed metal spools of prophitite, and other trace mythic metals slowly grew faster, the sound of whirring growing stronger and stronger. A radiation-suited man stood at the controls in an insulated box to the right across from the main machine, slowly turning the handle up to the proper percentage as the radiation soaked the inside of the main room. 

Abram always thought the blue strikes of lightning between the pillars were the prettiest part of the experiment. The static rippled, blue and white energy colliding between the three of them so quick that it stained the insides of the eyes and left nothing more than a memory. But there was no shortage of them. The musical bolts danced between each other, growing steadily in number until the spider web of energy grew vibrant between each of the gigantic bolts. They constantly jittered, fighting for dominance and dying a split second later, only for another to replace it. 

“Well, this is already looking promising,” Mr. Laurent grinned. “Never seen it look quite so steady before. The rods aren’t even wavering this time.” 

“We are only in the warmup, sir,” Edward cautioned. “We are heading now into the full experiment.” 

“Full power will commence in fifteen seconds,” the female voice warned over the loudspeaker. It was difficult to hear over the shrieking noise of metal on metal, but oddly enough Abram found it easy to isolate it among the mechanical noises. “Failsafes are on standby in case of powergrid failure. Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One.” 

The spider webbing became a wall around the triangular platform, and between those spools formed the impossible. 

Abram’s eyes witnessed a world on the other side of the pan of glass. A field of flowers every shape and color, blowing gentle in an unfelt breeze. It jilted and wavered with every spool that grew restless, but rendered itself relatively steady. 

Edward was counting under his breath. 

Mr’s Laurent’s hand tightened on Abram’s shoulder. 

Abram watched a creature, serpentine in appearance, run past the scene on a horse. It did not even seem to notice the rift in space and time, nor did it even pause. In a split second the thing was gone. 

Yet the door stayed open. 

Seconds passed by. Then minutes. 

It took five minutes for Laurent to start laughing. 

“Sir?” Abram looked warily to the man, watching his face tilt back in a roaring cackle that had him nearly buckling to his knees. 

“Look at that, Abram!” He cackled. “Syn isn’t even here this time, she can’t take the credit now, no sir. A stable, no holds-barred portal, right there in the flesh. Do you see it there, Eddie? You see that there portal?” He nudged Edward’s side hard, a blinding grin on his face as he tried to hold in the giggles. “Still think we need your calculations?” 

“This is impossible,” Edward muttered. “What numbers did you get? Where did you get this information from?” 

“Oh, let’s just say I have the right friends,” Laurent winked. “You know what this means now, don’t you?” 

“We have a portal to the multiverse,” Edward made the cross over his chest and whispered under his breath. “Deus salve a todos nós… Hell is down there. It is only a matter of time.”

“No, you bumpkin,” Mr. Laurent rolled his eyes. “We got a portal to the multiverse, and now we just need to tone in the signal to a certain someone.” He crossed his arms, and a stranger smile crossed his features. Abram shuffled away from the man and tried to think about gardening as Mr. Laurent started to whisper like he was speaking only to himself. “Only a matter of time now. I wonder what she’s doing right now, with power like that. Maybe she’s laughing it up, running around destroying the place. Or maybe a psychopath like that is murdering everything she touches.” 

Edward and Abram exchanged looks, and both decided separately that they would not ask any questions.


	2. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We're back, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Creator. 
> 
> Please enjoy the theme music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQOJ8n76sys

IT

There was once a very lonely little girl. 

A very lonely little girl that decided she didn’t want to be lonely anymore. 

So she made friends, people that would care about her the way that no one else did. In a way that she had never cared before. 

I had to admire her ability to replicate something she’d never had. 

Waves lapped at the golden sand, sea shells of all colors hiding the creatures underneath that traversed the warmth and looked for their next meal. Above in the cloudless sky, seagulls screeched, picking away at the slower creatures and settling on the exotic trees that blew in the wind. Several plastic beach balls zoomed by in the current, periodically disturbed by dolphins seeing them as a new toy with which to play. 

On the tiny desert island, the trees were sparse. Other than the sand beaches, the palms that waved to each other with each strong sea breeze, and the technicolor crabs, there was just the field at its center. The grass was long, fluttering in the breeze, and broken where the two of us sat. 

The stage curtains were red, velvet, and held closed with the quietest whispers behind it.

Pyrim stretched out over the grass, batting at a dragonfly he knew he wouldn’t be able to catch. Contented instead at the idea, he basked in the sun, lazily hitting at the air and paying little attention to the scene about to unfold in front of him. But I watched. I always watched. There was something about to happen, something brand new and inviting, and I had to be there to watch it. There was always something exciting happening when E was involved. 

“Ladies and gentleman,” The voice behind the curtain said, just as a disembodied drum roll began. “I present to you, the newest creation of the great and powerful Editor.” 

I clapped heartily, leaning forward towards the stage that stood out against the otherwise barren island. 

“What is it?” I asked, bouncing on the grass and at the edge of my seat. “Show me.” 

“Probably a new kind of crab,” Pyrim suggested. He slowly rolled over to look at the stage, but his eyes were soft with the kind of smile only he could give. “I like new crabs. Or perhaps a fish. Maybe a dinosaur.” 

“No, nothing like that,” came the voice on the other side of the curtain. The whispering continued for a few seconds after, and Pyrim’s fur started to rise. 

“E…” He ventured nervously. “What’s that you’ve got going on over there?” 

“Nothing,” The voice said quickly. “Just, stay there for a little bit. I’m doing something.” 

“Alright.” He reluctantly fell back against the grass. 

I kept my eyes on the stage. My heart was beating out of my chest. Another new thing. Another new thing from the Editor. I loved new things. New things were the best things of all the things. Every time she showed us a new thing it was always so vibrant, so colorful, so entertaining and filled with life. I still had a hermit crab in my lap with a swerving rainbow shell, curled up and hiding away. Occasionally, I poked it with my finger and watched it scuttle around to try and get away from me. 

“Okay,” The voice finally said hesitantly at first, but quickly began to gain confidence the longer it continued. “Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, ah… The first of many to come.” 

The curtain parted of its own volition, and on the stage stood the Editor in all her glory. Eyes as vibrant as anything, a face rosy and bobbed hair so bouncy it threatened to curl up and around itself. She’d grown. It had only been a year or two, I couldn’t really tell, but she’d grown all the same. A little taller, a little bulkier, and so much happier. I smiled with my eyes as she tentatively held her arms upraised and presented us with her newest creation.

A boy. 

“What is that.” Pyrim sat up quickly in alarm as he realized that there were two people on stage, rather than one. 

“It’s a boy,” she said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “I call him Daniel.” 

“Who is Daniel?” I asked. Already I was inching myself closer to the stage, to try and take in the human that stood awkwardly beside the girl. 

He was older than her, with brown hair and eyes as green as Pyrim’s. The closer I got, the most nervous he looked. The pointed hat on his head ducked down as he avoided my eye contact, rubbing the handkerchief on his arm and moving subtly back until he was behind the Editor. The stripped pants fluttered when he walked. He looked as though he were wearing a costume, but the fear in his eyes was real. I’d learned about fear from E, I knew what it looked like. But it was confusing, I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I just wanted to look at him. He was so interesting. Other humans existed, I knew that, I’d seen them in brief passing in the eye of desperation and a need for escape, but now that I was looking at him up close, I was struck by how different humans could look. 

“This is Daniel.” She grabbed him by the arm and brought him before her again in, this time closer so I could fully take him in. “Say hi, Daniel.” 

“Ahoy,” he muttered, the words being forced from his mouth like some kind of recorded message. “Where am I? Why can’t I remember where I was? Who are you people?” 

“See? He’s a pirate. He’s going to sail the seven seas.”

“A human, E?” Pyrim said incredulously. “I thought you were just working on islands, building land, forests, things like that. Animals, right? Just animals. What is this – this is just a test right?” Nervously, he hopped from foot to foot. 

Daniel gulped, his eyes widening as he backed further up away from me. Only then he backed into the girl behind him and nearly lost his footing. She righted him again, but he wasn’t looking away from me. “What the hell is going on? Why isn’t anyone listening to me? And what the hell is that thing?” He pointed to me. 

“Well, I like him,” I said with a shrug, and smiled the only way I knew how at the boy. His neck twitched in a gulp. I was trying to be nice. I was doing everything I could to make it easier on the boy, bowing and blinking at him and keeping my face hidden behind my hand so it didn’t look so strange when I spoke. But I was too different, I supposed. A cat made sense, a girl made sense. I didn’t make much sense. “He looks like a very good pirate. What’s a pirate again?” 

“A human that pillages on ships, they’re a kind of criminal,” Pyrim said. “Not to mention a human. Editor, don’t you realize what you could be doing by making something like this? He’s a person, an actual person, with his own emotions and feelings, positive and negative. Did you make him a future, goals, or did you give him free will? What do you think that will do to you? Don’t you know how connected you are to everything you make?” He stared at her, imploring her, but she kept her eyes steady with him, even glaring back at him. Her nose twitched in a way that made her upset, but she couldn’t keep that up when she knew how he felt. So she shrugged, turned away with a sigh, and ignored Daniels’ increasing nervous cries as he realized he couldn’t seem to get off the stage. 

“Well, I like pirates,” she said over Daniels’ whining. “So I want to have pirates in my word. And there are going to be pirates. And princesses. Humans of all kinds. This is a world, isn’t it? It needs people. I can’t just make only animals. I’ve already done enough for that, there are islands, lands, continents, all sorts of things and I’m bored. I’ve already made it a thing, anyways,” she muttered. 

“A thing? What do you mean?”

Sheepishly, she still refused to look Pyrim in the eye. “Well, he’s just the main character. I thought I should show him off first instead of everything at once.” 

“Everything?” 

“I made everything else already,” she finally growled. “A city, a bunch of populated islands, cities, and a princess. Her name is Crystal. She’s Daniels’ age, and they’re going to go on adventures together when I let him go off into the world. I had plans for them, ideas I wanted to do, of adventures they could go on. Intrigue. Exploration. Conflict. They get to battle this big ogre monster named Jeck and then Daniel kills him and Crystal’s dad doesn’t like it when she goes off on adventures, but then Daniel proves that they can work together and that they’re both strong because they fought and killed the monster!” She huffed, her fists clenched, daring Pyrim to say anything in response, looking like she’d get in trouble for saying anything more. Behind her, Daniel was cowering. She turned around to him, looking almost pained as she waved her hand across and let him disappear in a cloud of smoke. 

“You made an entire city with inhabitants and you didn’t tell us?” Pyrim asked. 

“This is my world, isn’t it?” She said. Her footsteps were heavy as she left the stage, jumping onto the grass and letting the entire structure behind her disappear as though it had never existed in the first place. In the blink of an eye, it had vanished from the world, and the island was back to normal. “This is what I wanted to. I want to build.”

“Build islands, build trees, build worlds, look to the stars as much as you want,” Pyrim tried to reason. He followed her heavy steps, but it was me she came to, falling into my lap for me to remove the faint streaks of color that dripped from her eyes. “You love gong into the oceans, making monsters and all the different types of fish. But you don’t need to make people. Just go swimming, enjoy yourself, don’t feel the need to have to do anything more.” 

“There’s nothing else left to do,” she muttered into my chest.

“What do you mean? There’s plenty, you’re only limited to your own creativity.”

“This is my creativity! I want to make a world, with people, everyone having their own lives, their own connections, their own hopes and prayers and despairs. It’s all I’ve known, it’s all I’m capable of when I’ve made everything else - I just… I don’t know,” She waved a hand dismissively, and the backdrop of the world fell away to the void once more. 

She’d changed this place. What had once been darkness, now was bright, and filled with the smooth, flowing color that had once overwhelmed her. Now it offered her comfort, a symbol of creativity, the very essence of creation itself. It was soft, bright, and flowed over her as she frowned and curled further up against me. The ground was cool and smooth, but with the flower of aura and color came with it a warmth that filled all three of us. Soft reds, blues, greens and yellows laced intertwined with each other, mingling and enjoying the company of themselves. I preferred the world that was filled with life instead of memories of thing I was meant to destroy, but this was nice too. It was calm, and soft. Some color wasn’t bad, as long as it wasn’t overwhelming. And E needed it. She’d been needing it a lot lately, that comfort. My comfort, too. 

“Is that why you’ve been needing me more?” I asked her curiously as I lay a hand over an eye still bleeding. She blinked up at me, then turned away abruptly. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I didn’t want you to worry about me.” 

“I never stop worrying about you, Da- E.” Pyrim stopped himself, but he’d still gone too far. He’d said the word we weren’t supposed to. The one that made the Editor flinch and look more hurt than before. “Editor,” he said. “I meant Editor.” 

“I know.” 

“I’m sorry.” 

“I know.” Silence followed. 

The Editor stared into the mindless distance, but her nose wrinkled more and more until she couldn’t stand that palatable guilt any longer. She stood up, walked over to the cat, and pulled him into her arms, hugging him as tight as she could. “I know you didn’t mean it,” she elaborated. “I know you’re trying.” 

“Why did you have to make people, Editor?” He asked her with a soft mewl at the end, his paw pressing up against her cheek. “You know what they do to you. That…” He looked over at me. “We’ve been over this. Remember me? How I make you feel? Imagine how much worse that would be ten fold?” 

“It doesn’t hurt that much,” she lied. “And I have the creature to help me.” She turned back over to me, clambering back into my arms with a cat as an addition. I tried to pet Pyrim’s ears, only for him to turn away with a dodge of his head. I dropped my hand, and stroked E’s hair instead. She smiled up at me, a pleasant, sweet smile. “I have the creature who keeps everything safe, and clean. It takes away the pain, right?” 

“Right,” I smiled as well as I could. 

“It can’t do everything for you,” Pyrim argued. He quickly dropped out of the Editor’s grasp and sat down beside her, as far away from me as he could get while still being close to her. “It takes away the color and the pain away, but we don’t know how much further it could go. You’d be pushing its abilities to the brink. You’re talking about making people, real, actual people. Even when I’m upset, you feel that. How many more times will that feeling be brought back upon you? What else could something like that do to you?” 

“We don’t know that’s how it works,” she lied. I nodded in agreement. The people made her happy. When I nodded, she looked up to me, and she smiled. It made my heart happy. “How was the last world made then, the world I came from? There were people in there, weren’t there? And it was bound to be made by another Editor.” 

“Maybe you’re the first.” Pyrim had his back turned to her. 

“Maybe,” she said. “But does that make sense to you? Or does it make sense that the last Editor planted some kind of seed? There’s no way of knowing. We’re in the dark, all of us. We’ve been left here to do whatever it is we please. No responsibilities, nothing but my imagination. Like you said, when we first got here. This is a blank canvas.” She waited for him to say something, but for once the cat was silent. She narrowed her eyes. “Whatever, it doesn’t matter. I don’t care. We don’t know, and we shouldn’t make any assumptions because of that. We don’t know if this is going to end up hurting me. It hasn’t, so far. So I want to keep going – no. I will keep going.” She fell further back into my arms, relaxing her small body and looking more exhausted by the minute. She didn’t need to sleep, but she certainly liked to. “It’s one city, a few smaller islands, and a few people that I actively have a hand in guiding. All the rest, I left them to choose to do what they like. And that’s done nothing to me. Do I look like I’m hurting? Do I look like I’m breaking apart?” 

Pyrim slowly turned back to her, his eyes narrowing as he struggled to look for something he wouldn’t find. E was obviously fine, perfect even, and she looked it too. There was nothing wrong with her. She was just as fine as she had been before, on the beach. I only wished she would be as happy as she was then. 

“The tips of your hair are darker.” 

“What?” She scoffed. “No they’re not.” She looked at them, held a lock up to her face, then tossed it away with a glare. “You’re just looking for things to be worried about. There’s nothing wrong with me.” 

“In an instant, you made an entire population of people with daily lives, and you feel every one of them. People like ants, living with love and pain and suffering. Show them to me.” 

“Pushy,” she muttered, but she waved a hand to show an image in front of us of the world she’d been made. 

My eyes widened. 

The city was beautiful. It was a seafaring town, and you could smell the salty air and fish through the wavering image in front of us. A castle stood at the center of it all, atop a cliff overlooking the sprawling coast and buildings bleached white by the sea. Woman, children, men ran up and down the many sets of stairs and bridges that connected the city together with baskets of food and trade. Further off stood massive sailing ships sleeping in the harbor while further in the distance more returned from duty. It was so colorful. Full of soft red and blues that had been washed out by the sea, and yet the banners for the castle were everywhere, floating in the breeze and atop the wondrous vessels.

“You made all of this,” I said, absolutely mesmerized. Every human was different, everyone chatting, enjoying their day to day lives, full of complicated interactions and a kaleidoscope of feelings. Happy, sad, mad, afraid, content, despairing… I could almost reach out and touch it. 

“This is dangerous,” Pyrim exclaimed, but even he couldn’t seem to turn away. “Having something like this – look at that, people are fighting in the street just over there with knives, Editor!” He pointed with a paw. “Someone’s going to die! People must have already died! How can you allow people to die under your watch? Isn’t this hurting you? You’re killing people!” 

The Editor didn’t like these questions. She huffed, standing up and didn’t look at Pyrim as she waved the image away. 

“I’m letting them choose to do what they want,” she said simply. 

“You gave them those emotions with which to choose. You made them angry.” 

“I gave them full reign over what emotions they’d like. I didn’t kill those people.” 

“You know you did.” 

“Pyrim,” she said, exasperated. “I don’t want to talk to you anymore. I’m going to go to the city that I MADE, alone. React to my decisions how you like, but don’t tell me what to do. Remember what you are to me.” She glared at him, but she couldn’t keep it up with that look of betrayal. “You’re a friend, Pyrim. Someone to talk to. But you’re not my mother.” 

She disappeared into the color. The window disappeared, leaving the two of us in the colored void that was nothing. 

“She might need me,” I said quickly, trying to stand, but Pyrim barked out a laugh. 

“She doesn’t always need you. Sit down.” 

“But you don’t know that. Those people might hurt her, you said so. So I have to be there to take it away.” There didn’t seem to be a way in to the other side. I kept looking and looking, wading through the color, but she didn’t even leave a secret way for me to get in. It must have been a mistake. She would come back, eventually, realizing she had left me. 

“You didn’t even bother to back me up. You think there’s nothing wrong with her. You must have seen the way she looked. The tips of her hair are darker, like they’re being eaten away. Bags under her eyes. She’s doing something wrong. Something is bringing her down. I can feel it inside, that negativity… It’s doing something.” 

Sighing, I sagged my shoulders and turned around to face the talking cat. I rubbed my face, then sat down and crossed my legs. 

“I know that people can hurt her,” I said. 

“So why didn’t you say anything?” He growled. “She would have listened to you!”

“Because it makes her happy.” His nose twitched into a snarl, but I held up a hand. “Be kind, for E’s sake.” 

“You shouldn’t let her happiness always dictate what you do. Her safety is important. If you were truly her friend, you would care about that.” 

“I do care about her safety.” I held up my hands to show him the aid I gave. “I am the one in charge of her safety.”

“Unfortunately.” 

“Why unfortunately?” I blinked at him. 

“Don’t start this again.” He began to pace. “You already know what you are.”

“E’s friend.” 

“No, what you really are. You pretend, but I know it. I know just how strange you are. How much you shouldn’t exist.” 

“The Editor can make anything.” 

“Not something that isn’t anything! You’re an absence, a nothing, a thing that isn’t. You’re the void itself. She’s a being of pure creation, a creature of making things. And in her pure desperation for something that would take away the pain, she was too creative to just wish the pain away. She could have just thought to stop hurting, to make a bigger storage space, infinite space, but instead she made it you. She made something that could take, and walk, and be the plaster to a solution she should have already taken care of. But she won’t listen to me. Because of you.” 

“I just want to be there for her,” I said, curling in myself as I felt his glare seep inside me. “I just want to make her happy. I need to be there for her, to keep her safe, to keep her content. She deserves it. She made me. Don’t you feel an obligation, too? You want to make her happy too. I know you do.” 

“Of course I do. It’s the Editor. Even before that…” He sighed. “I miss Dahlia. I miss the little girl that I spent all of my life with. She’s still there, I know she is, but not saying her name… It’s like she’s dead. I don’t want her to be dead. I want her to be here, with me, exploring herself and the world and learning over time the meaning of caring for things. But instead, she’s used you as a crutch. And she’s still not fully getting it. And she’s hiding.” 

“She’s not hiding,” I argued. “She’s learning to move past it. Become something more. Dahlia was just a tiny human, a child. But this is the Editor. This is E. She’s a different thing. She’s better than that.” 

“Dahlia was afraid of disappearing,” Pyrim lowered his head. “Dahlia was afraid of becoming something unrecognizable, of dying. She was afraid that her emotions, once released, would lead to a different person. She didn’t want to go away. And now she has. And the person that’s replaced her is someone that wants to pretend that she never existed.” 

“That’s not true!” I jumped up. “She’s still the same girl I rescued! She’s still Dahlia! I - I don’t say anything because I want to make her happy, but don’t you dare say that! She’s still a friend to both of us, still the one that gave us life, still the one that helped her mother, her sister, that- that helped Jennifer, that made the world better! She’s the one that cried when it was over, the one that realized what she’d done all her life! She’s an… An angel.” 

Pyrim chuckled faintly, coldly. After a while, he finally spoke. “She’s a God,” he said. “And she’s fallible. Human.” 

“She’s perfect to me.” 

“Be careful,” Pyrim warned, his eyes glittering as he finally looked me in the eye. He couldn’t hold it for long. The hair on his back began to stand the moment he tried, and after a few seconds he had to turn back away. “You know what happens when someone thinks that someone they love is perfect.” 

“You don’t love her if you don’t see it.” 

“You’re a child,” Pyrim sighed, and began to slink away. “A child monster. You don’t realize what she’s capable of. But I suppose we both will soon enough. She’s making people now. People with evil in their hearts. She’s taking a piece of herself, a part that makes her who she is, and places it as a core inside every person she makes to give them the spice of life that crabs and dolphins lack. Everything is going to have the will of a God. They’re going to be creations of strength, creatures of intellect. And choice. But I doubt she’ll reveal herself. So she’ll be making herself suffer for creatures that don’t even know her. They won’t even know what they’re doing. And she’ll be facilitating all of it. Each of them, all that negativity, all that darkness in their hearts that touch Dahlia and filter through her…” 

He dipped his head again, muttering to himself. “She’s going to destroy herself.”


	3. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Theme for this Chapter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBsqrLySseU

E

The sun shone high in the sky, hot and bright, a singular white sphere. Beneath its golden gaze, the world was flowing the movement. 

I ran down the steep steps of the mountain, alongside shops and tradeswoman with bowls balanced on their heads, children too young for school playing hide and seek, and men lugging their catch of the day. Guards patrolled periodically with their swords at their waists and stony gazes firmly out towards sea. I nearly laughed, watching them with burning curiosity as I passed by, barely keeping my feet out in front of me as I struggled faster and faster, taking the steps two at a time, never pausing for breath. I got a few odd looks, some smiles, some nervous glares, but I grinned at all of them, waved, and kept running. 

The city grew the closer to the bottom one traversed. Built on a mountainous island had made the entirety of it uneven, no building on the same footing as the other, bridges abound with steps cut right into the stone itself. It was difficult to get supplies further up to the mountain, so with the exclusion of the castle built on the highest foundations as a security factor, most of the larger buildings stood right up against the sea. Down there, craggy shores were cut into and replaced with docks of stone and wood to support the sheer fleet of ships built both for fishing and for defense. 

For all intents and purposes, the city shouldn’t have existed. There wasn’t enough forest for lumber, not enough food on the island for subsistence if the fish ran out. But that’s what I loved most about them. They built despite the odds. They didn’t have a reason for being here. Their stores told of vessels that traveled far and wide for an island large enough to sustain them. They couldn’t have known that their stories, hundreds of years old, were made up last month. 

I passed by a small shrine, and paused. 

The fetishes of their gods hung from strings to catch the sea breeze, chiming against each other from the metal links attached to them. Old Gods. So old, their names were lost to history. Their history at least, but I knew they never had names. God of the sea, god of fish, god of storms, god of the home. Each of them had subtle differences to mark them what they were, but at a glance they looked like drift wood whittled down into stick figures. At the bottom of the little platform, in this little artificial cave, there sat a bowl of rainwater with a couple of coins thrown in for good luck and wishes. 

I crouched down in front of the bowl, picked out a rusting coin, and frowned as I sat back down by the entrance, looking up at the soft clouds dotting the sky. As I leaned back against a stone pillar, I held up the coin, and watched it turn silver again in my hands.

It shimmered against the sunlight. 

I didn’t want to think about it. I shouldn’t have had to. I had a world before me, with everything I could have wanted. A world that loved the ocean as much as I’d come to. A world that was complicated. I should have been happy. Unused to being happy, it should have been easy now. It’s what I deserved. It’s what I was due. I had spent far too long fighting to feel nothing. 

And it seemed to come so easily in the beginning. There would be this little bubbling that grew in my throat, and then it would grow and grow until it was hard not to smile. A satisfying, laughing feeling. It made me want to do stupid things. Illogical things. But illogical could be fun. 

I should have gotten satisfaction from this. I could have been happy from this. I had everything in front of me that I wanted. I never hungered, I never tired. I had it all.

But then Pyrim had to go and ruin everything. 

I chewed the inside of my gum.

So what if the world sometimes hurt people? So what if people died sometimes? Everyone dies. Everyone has pain and suffering. How was it any different than the world I’d left? These people were largely happy, anyways. The only thing they worried for were the pirates, and they were more interested in searching out the islands I’d placed miles and miles away. The world was out there for them to explore, they didn’t need to pillage this city to get what they wanted. And this city was defensible, only the lowest sector could ever be touched before the city watch would get the upper hand and drive them back to their ships. It was a system, a good one. Their city would never fall. I’d thought it through for months, carefully working and testing. I didn’t know everything, and I didn’t pretend to. What I didn’t know, I let them learn themselves. And they’d done well. 

I’d built a working city. I’d built a civilization. I’d built life that I could feel pulsing inside of me. I’d built thought and emotion and intelligence beyond my own. I’d built life. I’d built free will in those that I didn’t look too hard at, those busy ants that created as they pleased. I’d etched out the fate of those important, but the rest had choice. They all chose this life.

I’d almost thought of sharing it with that stupid cat. I wanted to pick his brain, ask him about things I didn’t know. There was so much I didn’t know, and wanted to. I could try to wish they I did know things, but I never had the ability to know what I didn’t already. All I could do was vaguely agree that someone knew more than me, and then ask them a question to receive an answer. Tedious. Annoying. But Pyrim knew everything. I don’t know what I’d wished in that cat, but he’d been brought to me with a knowledge of Editors that not even that scientist had known. He was invaluable. And a… A friend. 

I had to laugh at that. I’d almost thought that sharing it with him would have made him happy, too. He always liked to see me happy, right? He always liked to see me enjoying myself. Building, creating. We were supposed to work together. But apparently, only when it suited him. Only when it suited his twisted morals. Like he still had morals. Morals were stupid. 

As soon as I tried to become a proper god, that was too far. 

I glanced back over at the shrine, twisted a hand, and added a god. A girl, off to the side, nearly pushed to the curb, only distinguishable by the slightly longer hair of the wood carving. 

I wondered what she would have been a god of, then after a moment, raised a hand and let it disappear.

It was already perfect as it was.

I turned back up to the sky again, and closed my eyes. 

The pulse of the city was overwhelming. I could feel it in my mind, exploding with pain and wonder and mystery with every new breath of sea air. Somewhere, a man was arguing with a woman over the price of a pound of clams. Somewhere else, a boy was sparring with a girl and teasing about who had the better sword stance. But then, there was a little girl whose parents hadn’t returned from their trip out to sea. The two fishermen had been caught by a particularly nasty band of pirates. She’d be going without supper for a few days before she’d be out begging on the streets. In a month, she’d be kicked out because she wouldn’t be able to pay the tax to keep her home. 

That negativity brought with it a kind of electric shock to my system. I could feel the way it changed my heart, the way that it trickled down the stem of my brain and settled in my bones. There was pining there, despair, emotions that were almost tangible daggers inside my chest. That strange compelling gesture of sadness made me pause. It always made me pause. That darkness inside one’s heart, the dramatic flair, it was so… Interesting.

If I focused on it too long, then it hurt more than I could take. And that sting, it lasted. Sometimes minutes, sometimes hours. And sometimes it didn’t seem to want to go away at all.

It made me want to snap my fingers, bring her family back, wish them a long and happy life, make them nobles of their city, rewrite their history to include a long aristocratic family line that could be their claim to fame. But I didn’t focus on it too long. I only took as much as I could before I ignored it, and let it simmer in the background of the world, drowning in the complicated nature of the rest of existence.

Unhappiness was a part of life, too. At least she could feel something. She knew what pain feels like, the emotional gravity of losing people so close to her. She’d grow and understand that, grieve, put flowers on a grave with no bodies behind it. Or perhaps she would die young, showing the danger that the pirates possessed. There weren’t always good people. The world couldn’t exist that way. 

Why? 

I looked up at the sun, and furrowed my brows. 

Well, I supposed that I could have made everyone happy. 

There was a religion about that, once. I never went to that church, I’d only ever passed by it. But I did hear stories. An Eden, a world without problem. Everyone was happy, I supposed. Parties, and all the food that they could enjoy. But no apples, no, their god hated apples. I wondered if he liked doctors too much.

But then someone bit into that fruit he detested so much, and their god didn’t like that. He threw a temper tantrum, cast his people out of ignorant peace, threw them down to a world very much like this one. He remade the world because he was upset over an apple. 

Such a complicated creation story. So needlessly convoluted. All he had to was skip the middleman. Don’t give people things that they would remember, for then they’d only continue to pine for something they’d never get back. Now those people would have no choice but to want to return to that world, joining the religion on the off chance they might get a taste of perfection. All the while stuck within this world the god had locked them inside. To hurt forever. 

Or maybe that was the point.

Perhaps he was like me, in the end. He wanted to make conflict. It never made much sense to me, to get angry over an apple. This god must have wanted a world of push and pull. But he wanted an excuse to do it, because then he could keep the trust of people whose hearts he had broken. He wanted an excuse for something that I had done because I wanted to. I wondered if the guilt ate away at him. If he realized just how much blood he had on his hands. If he ignored it in favor of the cacophony he got to witness.

A broken world was an interesting world.

A broken world was an entertaining world.

He could have just been honest with himself and done it from the start, then sat back and enjoyed the euphoria of a complicated existence. 

I could be selfish. I deserved it. 

Were they truly people anyway? Or were they just my own machinations? Weren’t they just projections of my mind? That’s where their souls lived. That’s how they survived. These people only lived as long as I did. They were nothing to me, nothing more than pieces of myself. 

My children. Little pets that I tortured for my own amusement. 

This would have been easier for Dahlia. 

I kicked at a rock. 

This is why Pyrim knew everything. He could make the decisions, and I could have fun. That was the way these things worked. I just wanted to build. I didn’t want to think about this. He should have been able to make me feel better, solve my problems for me, make the world the same but without the guilt. And he’d just looked at me like I’d murdered his best friend. Like I was a monster for wanting to see something that wasn’t perfect. 

“Excuse me, miss?” I opened my eyes, and a young man stood with a broom strapped to his back. He’d come to clean the shrine. 

I tilted my head, and knew his name. Noah. Simple name, for a simple man. He did this job because he couldn’t stand the stench of fish. Strange for a man in the middle of a city built on the face of the sea. He spent too much time playing hooky and not enough time working with his father down at the docks. Anything to get away from those slimy eels and scaled faces. He secretly relished working at the shrine, because it meant he was as far away from the smell of fish as he could reasonably get. But then, he’d grown to care for his work. Perhaps it was fate that he ended up in such a fulfilling profession. Or perhaps it was a girl that had written his life in the quarter of a second it took to recognize him. 

“Yes?” I asked. 

“What are you doing at the shrine?” He looked at the coin in my hands. “Did you come to wish something?” His mouth twitched when he saw what I was wearing. I smiled. Overalls weren’t exactly in style. The material didn’t exist here, nor the intricacies of the buttons. 

“No,” I said. I sat up against the cave wall, crossed my legs, and watched him enter. 

“Oh…” He wrinkled his nose as he took the broom from the holster on his back and started to sweep. “Why are you here then, to pray? Would you like me to leave you alone?” 

I watched the way he moved. His hands gripped the broom tightly, then let go after each sweep, a little flourish of his from doing this time after time. Blond hair bounced with every movement. He’d always been trying to get those cowlicks down, but it never seemed to work for him. The girls thought it was handsome. The priest robes didn’t suit him. They were too blue, the sea whorl designs etched in white seeming to fight with his green eyes. 

But it was his aura I liked the most. He hated the blue that encapsulated his life, and I supposed there was a reason. Because his singularity was yellow. One of the few yellows I’d seen. It was bright, cheery, and warm, too warm for the cold of the city. When he turned to my staring, I expected a warm grin to match it. But he frowned. 

“Miss? Are you alright? You keep staring at me.” 

“Sorry,” I said. I stared at my shoes for a moment, stealing glances at he shrugged and went back to sweeping the smooth stone floors. 

I didn’t like the quiet of it. 

“Hey, Noah.”

He froze in place. “Sorry?” he stuttered. “Do I know you?” 

I shook my head. 

“Oh… Do you know a friend of mine?” 

“Noah, do you think a God should make a perfect world?” 

“Oh.” He blinked, then quirked a smile at having the chance to talk about religion. He hadn’t for ages, and certainly never thought a little girl would ever ask such a thing. This was his time to shine. His aura was shining too. “Well, that’s certainly a question. I guess I suppose so. I mean, these gods haven’t.” He tenderly knocked the hanging gods with the handle of his broom. “But they’re not perfect gods, either. They fight often, and those fights make the world tremble at their feet. Those are the storms, the waves, the strength of the winds. But are you really alright, miss? Don’t you have parents you should be getting back to?” 

“But what about people’s hearts?” I asked. “Why did they make bad people?”

“It’s the people’s decisions to be bad, not the gods. And it’s up to people to make the world good. The gods gave us the world, as messy as it is. They created us from the mud at the bottom of the ocean, but that doesn’t mean they have complete control over what we do. Their jobs ended when we were made. That’s what makes us fallible. That’s what makes us human.” He paused sheepishly. “Sorry, I’ve been listening too much to the Mother’s lectures. She has all this information that really got me going, you know?” He brushed the dust out of the shrine down the steps thoughtfully. “I never thought I’d be a religious man, but if I keep spouting nonsense like this, maybe it suits me.” 

It did suit him. 

He was so different. So unique. 

I had seen too much of him. Too much of this world.

When he turned back to me, he was taken aback. 

“Oh miss, don’t cry. Everything will be alright. Did something happen? I could get the Mother to help you. Did… Did something happen at school?” He crouched down in front of me, and holding out his hand to wipe the tears away. 

I grabbed his hand. 

He froze in place, staring at my eyes. 

“Is… What is that…”

“Color,” I said.

“Why is it coming from your eyes? What’s wrong? Why is it… it’s like algae, floating… It’s so beautiful…” 

“Noah.” I pressed his hand against my cheek. “Do you like this world?” 

“Of course,” he muttered. “I-I mean, I think I do. I got a nice job, not too close to the fisheries. Just smells like sea. But, I mean, I guess it’s not perfect. People die. That’s a part of life, though, isn’t it?” 

“What if it wasn’t? What if I wasn’t thinking hard enough? What if I should have made something that didn’t have pain? Was a few months enough? Should I have waited longer, told Pyrim, gotten more points of view? Should I have kept out the apples?” 

“Excuse me? Apples?” 

“What if I should have given everyone peace? Eternal life, eternal happiness? Would we still be human? Would we really know what happy meant? Or am I just selfish?”

Noah was mute. 

“I don’t know the answer either,” I sighed. “But I think… I don’t think I would be happy if I made the world like that. I don’t think I’d be happy if everyone else was. Then there’s no point in being happy. If a food is just sweet, if there’s no salt in it, then isn’t it too sweet? Isn’t it? I’m not selfish, am I?” 

“I don’t quite understand,” Noah stuttered. He took his hand back, but his eyes were as wide as moons. I tried to wipe the tears away, but the growing ache of the color was returning again. Creation stung at my eyes, making me want to clutch and tear at them, blind myself to the knowledge of what I was capable of. I could still feel the sting of where scars had once been. I’d wished them away, but they’d been there, once. I could remember it. Clawing my own eyes, out, screaming, pleading.

I kept my hands firmly at my sides. 

“It’s okay,” I bit my lip. “I don’t think I do either. Maybe I am just selfish. Maybe I just want to see conflict. Maybe I just like the world to be dangerous. Like the one I came from.” The one I could never go back to. “It wasn’t a great one, there was always fighting. Yelling.” I stood up, stretched, then placed the coin back in the bowl. 

I smiled as I pictured my mother’s rage. I bet she was happy right now. But it was a kind of happiness that was so human. Imperfect. Flecked with black. The kind that wavered when Charlie broke a bowl in the kitchen trying to make pancakes in the morning. The kind tinged with fear when the bills came back in the red and Charlie wanted to go to Disneyland. Maybe, the kind that sunk when she looked up at the ceiling late at night and wondered why there was another room in the house but nothing in it. 

Or maybe that was just wishful thinking.

I turned around, and Noah grabbed my arm. 

“Who are you?” He asked. “At least tell me that.” The hair on his arms stood up, and it wasn’t from the chill sea breeze. 

I smiled at him. 

“Your name is Noah. You’re fallible, but you’re a good person. You’re bright, and you’re going to find yourself a nice girl in a few years.”

I could give him that, at least. But I couldn’t go too far. He was no major character. He couldn’t be on my mind. Not if he wanted the choice to do what he wished. 

His breath was shaky. He dropped his hand away, marveling at the colors that kept leaking from my teary eyes. I tried to wipe them away, but they just kept coming. I couldn’t stay here. I’d left someone important behind. This was a stupid mistake, to go running off without someone to keep me safe. I was too mad, now I was paying for it. 

In the blink of an eye, Noah was back to sweeping the shrine without a care in the world, and I was gone. 

The color in the void drifted around me, taunting me for mistakes. They tangled around my arms, tugging and pulling like excited, mischievous children, as if they weren’t already punishing me for my existence with every second they leaked from my eyes. Yes, I’d made a mistake. I’d forgotten the only person that could help me with them. But they weren’t going to stop me now. I had some apologizing to do. 

I threw them to the side, and started running. 

It had to be here somewhere. If I could just avoid everything else, find the person I wanted to find, then I wouldn’t have to deal with Pyrim’s annoying grouchy self. I didn’t need to see his face, have him look at me with those incriminating eyes, tell me what I was doing wrong. I didn’t want to know what I was doing wrong. But no doubt they were apart. With attitudes like theirs, they spent more time apart than together. Pyrim seemed to do was find ways to condemn it, no matter what I tried to say in its favor. At least it knew that I was just trying to make things. It always liked what I made. It always agreed with me.

I wondered what Pyrim would say to being stuck on an island in the middle of the ocean for a few weeks. Maybe that would straighten him out. 

I found the creature with its eyes closed, its chest rising and falling, in the center of a whiteness that the color refused to touch. Perhaps it was sleeping. All this time, and I still wasn’t sure if it ever felt tired, or if it was simply bored and waiting for me. 

I sighed.

I approached it slowly, watching its white head, limp and unmoving with those stained black eyes. For now they were just slits, closed, fluttering as it’s chest took in nothing. There was no way it could breathe. There was no mouth. There was only a blank face, a nothing. Attached to a blank body, a blank chest, and blank legs with blank feet and blank toes. It wore pants, I thought, if I squinted. It was hard to tell. A lot of things about the creature were hard to tell. Looking at it too long made everyone else’s eyes strain. Pyrim didn’t like to be near it. No one seemed to. It was the lack of color, the lack of aura, that lack of soul from the creation I’d made out of desperation. 

I crouched down beside it, watching its peaceful expression. 

It was that lack of color made it so easy to look at. There was no aura to tell me who it was, no internal story to tell it who it had to be. As a nothing, it took up no space inside my mind. It didn’t exist, thought it was right in front of me. A negative thing that was the most soothing of balms on my mind. 

An absence that I loved more than anything. 

I only wish someone else could see how good it was. 

It opened its eyes when I fell against its chest. 

“Hey,” I said. “I’m hurting again.” Before I could finish my sentence, the creature was tenderly placing a big, thin hand against my cheek, wishing away the color, bringing me back to myself. Bringing me back to human. When it pulled away, its eyes were smiling. 

“Better?” It asked. 

“Better,” I smiled. “Thanks.” I buried my face against its chest. The body wasn’t warm, nor cold. It felt like nothing. The same temperature as the world around us. It truly didn’t exist. 

“How was the city?” It asked. 

“It was a city,” I muttered. “With city things. You know.” 

“I don’t,” it said. “I haven’t really seen or heard anything of cities before. But that glimpse looked really interesting, before you left.” 

My heart panged. “I’m sorry about that,” I admitted. “I didn’t mean to leave you like that, I did need you. I don’t know why I didn’t bring you with me. I think I was just upset. What Pyrim said – I just… I didn’t want to stay around for that.” 

“I understand,” it said, its voice so soothing and full of comfort. “I was sad when you were gone. But I am happy you’re back. I missed you. And I don’t want you to hurt. Did the city hurt you?” 

“What?” I blinked. “No, of course not.” 

“But you were crying.” 

“The colors made me cry.” 

The creature looked uncertain. “Pyrim said that the people were going to hurt you. He said they would destroy you. I didn’t want to believe it, but-” 

“Pyrim’s a big penis.” 

“But…” The creature tentatively raised its hand, and instead of stopping by my face, it continued to take a lock of my hair. Those pinpricks of white light in the center of black sockets narrowed as it struggled to observe something it couldn’t focus on. I raised an eyebrow at its insistence. 

“What are you looking at?” I asked with a smile. 

“Your hair.” 

“I can see that.” 

“The tips are darker.” He showed it to me. “See?” 

I pulled my hair back with a frown and hid my face against the things’ chest. “Not you too,” I groaned. 

“I just wanted to make sure. Pyrim seemed upset about it, but I didn’t think there was anything wrong with you. If you want to change the way that you look, that’s okay. I didn’t mind when you made your hair lighter, or your eyes brighter. You could be anything, and it wouldn’t matter to me. You are always my Editor, regardless of what you do to yourself. But the hair, is it a choice of your own?” 

“Can we stop talking about it?” 

“But I do think it looks nice.” 

“I didn’t choose to do it.” The creature paused.

It turned it’s head up to the void, and watched the colors so it couldn’t show what it was thinking with its eyes. The silence spoke volumes. 

I gritted my teeth. “I didn’t choose to do it, but that doesn’t mean anything.” 

“Of course. And whatever happens, E, I’ll listen to you. I just want you to be happy.”

“Good,” I growled, but then I faltered. “I… Good.”

“But if it’s hurting you, would you please tell me? I don’t want things to hurt you.” The creature’s grip tightened on me, squeezing gently as it rested it’s chin on my head and let its chest sink in its own kind of sighing. “I don’t like when the color hurts you, it’s like it’s hurting me too. It makes you cry. And if the negative emotions of the world around you start to hurt too, then please tell me. Because I’m supposed to be the one that doesn’t make you hurt anymore. I don’t think I could bear it if you hurt.” 

I went quiet then, and felt that sting slowly grow inside me. That little girl wasn’t going to ever see her parents again. Noah would always feel a hole in his mind of where I used to be, a confusion that would seem like nothing at first, but would grow to envelop and obsess him in his later years. Like it or not, he’d become a major character, a person burning at the front of my mind. 

And everyone was afraid of pirates. A constant fear, a buzz that never seemed to end. 

That sting could be agony if I looked at it too long. I could keep burying it, take it out when I wanted to feel something stronger than happiness, but that drug was of a dangerous sort. I was playing with fire. But I could never say that. I could never admit it to Pyrim.

“If… If I did tell you it hurt me,” I ventured, “Then what would you do? You… You wouldn’t tell Pyrim, would you?” 

“Do you want me to tell Pyrim?” 

“No!” I said, too quickly, too harshly. 

“Then I wouldn’t tell Pyrim,” it said with smiling eyes. “I wouldn’t ever tell him about it, because I know it would upset you. My lips would be sealed for eternity.”

“You don’t have any lips.” 

“Then my eyes. But if it hurt you, then I would what I always do. I’m supposed to take the color away, right? Well… Maybe I could try to do the same for all that negative emotion those people cause inside you. If you’re the main hub, and their feelings are on feedback inside you, maybe I could sever the whole thing. Take it away, make it so it no longer exists inside you.”

The idea was a creative one. I thought about it for a moment. But I couldn’t seem to think of a downside. If the negativity was gone, then… “Do you really think it would disappear?” I asked. I blinked up at it, pressed closer in growing curiosity. “Can you do that?” 

“I don’t know. I could try.” 

I grinned. “Look at you, you great big eraser,” I laughed. “I didn’t even think of that. Maybe you should be the Editor.” 

“But I only ever want to see your creations, E,” it hummed. The creature closed its eyes in contentment, then sat up attentively, and placed me firmly in its lap. “Are you ready?” It asked. 

“Of course,” I said. “Let’s try.” 

It placed its hand at my hair, a large palm tenderly gripping my head, and a look of focus crossed its features. I stared back at it intently, watching as it tried to do something incomprehensible. 

“How do you think you’ll be able to do it?” I asked. 

“I don’t know,” It said. “It’s hard to think about. Do I just flip a switch, and suddenly I take negative energy too? How do I do something like this?” 

“Well, maybe I can help.” I grabbed its hand, and thoughtfully ran a finger over it. 

I imagined giving it the negativity. The darkness of the city. The evil within it. I imagined it taking the sadness of that little girl, the anxiety that lurked in all of them, even the most simple of fears as that of wondering what happens after one dies. 

And that sting disappeared. All that was left, was the excitement of a complicated world. 

When I looked at its face again, its eyes were smiling. But I wasn’t. 

If I squinted, I could almost see it. 

The creature’s body was just a little darker. 

“Did it work?” It asked. 

“I think… I think it did,” I grimaced. Inside, my heart was too fast. I gripped its hand and tried to pretend I wasn’t seeing what I was. It must have been a trick of the light. It didn’t look any different. The creature was still the same as ever. What if I could just imagine it back its shiny white self, I could do that, right? I could just imagine the pain of negativity, I could just imagine all of it disappeared and gone. 

It didn’t get any brighter. 

“I don’t feel any pain at all anymore,” I muttered. “It’s completely gone. How are you, are you alright? Do you feel anything, anything at all?” 

“I think I’m alright,” it blinked. “I’m not really sure what happens to the color after I get rid of it for you. I suppose it just stops existing.” Its eyes smiled again. “I think it must have worked.”

I could tell the creature. I could tell it that it was different. What I had done to it. That I couldn’t seem to stop it, or turn it around. I could tell it that we should never do it again, that we’d have to find some other way. That we’d have to stop making people, go back to animals, or else make a perfect world. That Pyrim was right. We could stop this, right here, right now. 

But… I didn’t feel any pain right now. And it looked so happy. It didn’t even feel a sting. It was smiling, calm as could be. 

And it didn’t like it when I felt pain, right?

“Well, then it’s probably the same for this too, then,” I lied. I stood up slowly from its lap, dusted myself off, and tried not to look it in the eye. “You saved me from feeling all of the bad stuff, you know. Now we can rub it in Pyrim’s face. He can’t get upset at me anymore, because there’s nothing to be upset about.” Pyrim. I’d have to hide this from Pyrim. Or explain it to him. He must have at least seen the good this could do. The creature didn’t hurt. It was just a hair greyer than before. That was fine, right? So what if it didn’t shine as brilliantly as it did before. The color still didn’t like it. It avoided the thing like a plague. There wasn’t any difference. “You know how Pyrim likes to lie. He’s so mean.” I bit my lip. 

“Well, there’s still the people in the city. They have to be sad sometimes, still. I don’t think he likes that very much. I think it’s interesting, though. I love everything you make, E.”

Shut up. Stop looking at me with those sweet, calming eyes. How could you still look at me like that. 

“Life isn’t perfect,” I said tentatively. “He thinks they should have a perfect life, but I’m not sure that’s a life worth living, right?” The creature nodded enthusiastically, and I could feel my heart settling. I sighed in relief. “I think that’s how I want to build a world. This is the direction I want to go in. And now… Nothing left to stop me, right?” I picked up the creature’s hand, and held it tight. It kept looking down at me. I risked looking into it’s eyes, and it was then my heart truly calmed. It was just as absent as before, just as sweet, smiling just at is always had. 

A little shadow would change nothing. 

“And we can work together now, can’t we?” I looked up to it in question. “We can build it together. I’ll expand the world, you can help me by getting rid of that feedback of negativity, and together we can make an entire world. With a history. With stories. We can go on adventures together, just like the people and the narratives I make of them. Wouldn’t that be fun?” 

The creature’s hug was almost tight enough to make my choke. 

“Very, very, very much,” it said. “Let’s go on adventures. As long as I’m beside you, I’ll be happy. Just… Never leave me again, okay?” 

“I’ll never leave you again.” I smiled sadly. “Never again.” I couldn’t. It was the least I could do. All it did for me… “Now,” I pushed away from the creature, and grinned at him. “Want to see what happens when we leave Pyrim on an abandoned island for a couple weeks? Maybe that’ll sort out the stick he has up his bum.” 

“That does sound kind of fun,” it giggled. “But not for too long, okay? I don’t want Pyrim to be mad, either.” 

“That’s the point of sending him to an island,” I punched its shoulder. “He’s always mean to you. He deserves a little time to cool down.”   
“We’d have to leave him a cat tree or something, though. It would be mean to leave him without anything.” 

“A saltwater pool,” I suggested. “And nothing else.” 

“How is he going to drink water?” 

“He’s smart, he’ll figure it out.” 

“If you say so, E. But I’d still like to leave him a cat tree. And some kibble.”


	4. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Theme for this chapter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECMsOEIX1A8

The sea roared like a tiger. She insisted on walking along the thin stone barrier that separated the surf from the oddly colorful sand, a tight rope of slowly eroding rock. But her feet were sure, and her poise was excellent. And if she were to fall, I had her hand, firmly grasped in mine. To our right, a tropical forest grew with every footstep. The sound of fauna was so loud that it seemed to drown out the raging water. The cackle of monkeys sounded over the tree tops, fueled by the hiss of insects, and the strange croons of creatures incalculable. 

She would look at me occasionally, and that little smile would be enough. Her eyes were wide with ideas, her brown eyes so saturated with color. Today, she’d forgone the overalls, in favor of wide black corduroys that dragged against the ground with every step, and a shirt so purple it seemed to drown out every other shade, even the bright orange and red of the beaches.

I’d only wished the tips of her hair would go back to the way they were. 

She stopped at a peninsula to look over one of the great bays of this massive island she’d been so set on walking around. It must have been a kilometer across, with deep eddies that seemed to drop down hundreds of feet. Underwater cliffs filled with shellfish and small schools of colorful fries. The water was turquoise at the very edge, but faded into a deep, beautiful blue in the center. She waved a hand, and at first it looked as though there was no change. But that blue was lighter. When a swarm of the fingerlings raced over the deeper water, a maw appeared from the depths. It was a set of teeth unlike any other, each fang the size of a building, rows upon rows seeming to line the bay itself. A mouth a kilometer long rose out of the water and engulfed the population of fish that had made that bay home. We saw the face of that creature, a terrible monster with a big, bulbous black eye that noticed our presence as it ingested thousands. Then it released the water it had swallowed, the trickles to it like sheer rock faces giving way to rivers. When it was done, it slowly receded back into the bay proper. Its deep blue scales disappeared, then its lips, and then those terrible teeth. The bay was back to that deep blue, that seemed to ripple ever so slightly when the schools of fish began to return there. 

“I think this world is boring,” she said she continued walking. 

I tightened my grip on her hand, but I don’t think she noticed. 

“Why do you think that?” I asked. 

“There’s nothing to do,” she said.

“There’s lots to do, though. We’re doing something right now, aren’t we?” 

“I suppose,” she shrugged. “But we’re just walking around, making yet another island that doesn’t have people on it just to satisfy that cat. Did you hear the things he said? I should be ‘learning more about how to vary the animals I make.’ I should be asking him how the body works, whether my life forms should be ‘carbon-based.’ So much ‘I should’. I don’t even know what that means. Carbon-based. I don’t want to think about why things work. I just want them to work.” 

“You didn’t have to listen to him, I suppose,” I said. I kept my hand carefully on hers, and tried not to think too hard about anything. I just smiled, and hoped she would be happy. 

“I know I didn’t have to, per say. He’s not the boss of me.” She squared her shoulder. “But he… I don’t know, he convinced me,” she said quickly. “How have you been feeling?” 

I smiled harder. 

“I’m perfectly fine,” I said. “I haven’t felt anything. And I’m happy. As long as you’re happy, that is.” I picked her up in my arms, hugged her tightly, and then set her back down on the sand. She pouted, but she let me continue to hold her hand as we continued down the sandy banks, and away from the rocky shore. We worked our way slowly around the deep gouge of the bay, leaving the stones that lined the shore and coming to dark green sand that dropped off into the sheer darkness. As we approached the edge, I imagined that big mouth swallowing up anything that tried to cross the bay. 

“Why did you make that?” I asked her. 

“Because it’s terrifying,” she said. 

I peered into the depths of the water, only to turn away at the sight of my own reflection. I tried to focus on E instead. She didn’t look happy. She looked worried. She kept turning her sights on my hands, my face, the grey that I didn’t need to acknowledge. She didn’t need to either, but she couldn’t seem to stop looking. The back of my neck itched when she watched for too long. 

“Are you sure?” She asked. Worried eyes blinked up at me, framed by a tangled mess of hair still drying from her stint in safer water. But she wasn’t asking for the truth. She didn’t want to know. She didn’t want the answer, because that was the wrong answer. I wasn’t about to give it to her. It didn’t matter, anyways. 

I held back that sting in my heart as I enthusiastically nodded my head.

“Yes, I’m happy. I’d be even happier if we were doing things that you enjoyed. Why don’t you make more people? I know Pyrim doesn’t like it very much, but it couldn’t be too different from the other city, right? And you like not listening to Pyrim anyways.” I tried to sound happier. I wondered if it was the same happy I had sounded like before. It was hard to tell, but it seemed to work.

“Making more people on another stupid island?” She groaned. “Even I’m tired of that. That’s all I’m ever doing. I mean, I had ideas for a place like this one.” She gazed at the exotic tree line. The palms that waved in the breeze, the vines that seemed to beckon one closer into the depths of a jungle filled with all manner of beasts that were as dangerous as they were unique. “I was planning on making a world full of children, here.” 

“What kind of children?” 

“The kind that are better than adults.” 

“How?” 

“They’d be more evolved. More intelligent. Better equipped for the world. But they wouldn’t be perfect either.” She turned to the bay. “A creature would swim in the distance, a monster with the head and neck of a dragon, and the body of a whale.” She held her arms out as she braced her legs, and imagined. I squinted, and could see the faint spray or something large moving very, very fast. “It’s an alien that crashed from a sun – or a meteor, that makes more sense. I should ask Pyrim about how space works.” She paused. “When I’m not mad at him. Okay, then it landed, and brought with it a capacity to bend time.” That ocean spray seemed to be getting closer, and I was starting to realize just how far away it was. That spray was a tidal wave. The creature propelled itself like a rocket. A rocket the size of a small island. “It hunts only around this massive island, never goes further, and the people here begin to worship the creature as a god. And rightfully so. Because something like that, it makes everyone age slowly. At least twice as slow, maybe more. Adults are children, and it’s these children that control the city in the middle of this tropical island. Those that reach maturity, the physical age of… Let’s make it twenty, those are the ones that they sacrifice to the creature. Because a monster like that, it never stops growing. It’s…” She tapped thoughtfully on her chin. “The Doaeda. That’s what they call it. And the people here have their own language, and their own form of writing. Their culture should be incredibly diverse, luxurious, and full of lore and mythology. They got here through pirates colonizing the land. That’s why they don’t trust adults. They were slaves, and the pirates were the only adults they ever knew. They cut themselves off from every other city across the sea for fear of having to deal with these monsters they call adults.” 

“Why would they sacrifice to a monster if it eats people? Even if they are adults, aren’t they their own people? They aren’t pirates.” 

“They’re very religious,” she argued. “Everything is entwined with their religion. Even politics. That’s why the sacrifices keep happening. If they’re going to make a monster like that leave the rest of their fishing population alone, they’re going to have to give it people. And they don’t want old adults ruining everything, even the ones that used to be them. Most of them choose to be sacrificed. It’s meant to be the end, they prepare themselves for it. Besides, adults are always annoying, talking about things they pretend to understand. They kids are smarter than that, they know that they gain nothing from them.” She dropped her hands, and continued to stare out at that ocean spray. “I think there comes an age when people don’t understand what they’re talking about. There’s just too much there for you to come up with a good answer. Too much inside you.” She trailed off. 

“Like those people from the other world?” 

She made a face. “Are you listening?” 

“Of course I am,” I blinked. “I’m always listening. I just thought, maybe that’s why you made this society. This doesn’t sound like your usual creations. It’s different.” 

“Well, maybe I want to be different,” she scowled. “Maybe I want to make something that isn’t tainted.” 

“They don’t feel negativity?” 

“No – I meant-“

“Then they hurt?” 

She winced. “Yes-“

“Doesn’t that make them tainted?” 

“Ah, forget it.” She stormed off, and made a face when I followed after her.

The two of us breached the exotic foliage. The ground beneath our feet was wet and sticky. The screeching of animals seemed too much even for E. Craving silence, the sound seemed to disappear under her trudging with no more than a look in its direction. She seemed to fade through leaves and twigs, rather than pushing them aside. I pushed and kicked through branches to keep up with her. Blood drinking caterpillars dripped from massive leaves to land on my shoulders, but broke off as soon as they tried to burrow. I supposed there was no blood for them drink. 

“I’m sorry if I said something wrong,” I said. “I didn’t mean to. Your happiness is my first priority.” 

“Shut up, stop saying that.” 

“Stop saying what? What did I do wrong? I’m confused, I want you to be happy.” 

“Stop saying that you want to make me happy all the time,” she said. “It’s annoying. I’m not a little kid anymore.” 

“I’m sorry,” I said. “But if you’re not a little kid, then what are you now?” She paused, her fists clenched. 

“I’m a teenager, now, but that’s not what this is about. I don’t want someone holding my hand all the time, or telling me that they care about me. I don’t want some kind of emotional support imaginary friend. I want someone that will just be there for me to joke with me, someone I can actually have conversations with.” She turned about, her eyes almost desperate. “You’re so boring sometimes, you know that? You never do anything but listen to the things I say. Maybe you’ll ask a question here and there, but that’s it. You never fight back. Ever. All you do is agree. There’s nothing to the things we talk about. Like you’re not even there. Pyrim fought back. Pyrim always fights back.” 

“But you don’t like Pyrim.” 

“Pyrim’s an asshole!” She ground her teeth. “But he’s an asshole that I can at least carry a conversation with. He has something to him, thoughts, ideas, differing opinions, an… An aura. What are your hopes? What are your dreams? Do you have any? Who even are you? What are you?” 

“My dream is to make you happy,” I faltered. “Did I do something wrong with that?” 

“You’re not even listening to me!” 

I fell back slightly, sitting down on a stump, and slumped my shoulders. Her voice was loud. Her eyes were blown and upset. But there was no color for me to get rid of. I couldn’t do anything to help her. “I don’t know what I’ve done wrong, E. I’m very sorry. I didn’t mean to do anything wrong.” 

“Stop saying you’re sorry when I’m destroying you!” She snarled. 

I froze. Her chest heaved for a second, like she wanted to say something more. The two of us stared at each other like strangers, looking at each other’s eyes for a sign of something. For what exactly, neither of us were sure. She wanted to speak. Her lip trembled. There was something she wanted so desperately to tell me. I wanted to ask. 

But then she faded. Her face paled, and she had to brace herself against a tree. 

“You’re not destroying me, E.” 

“Don’t lie to me. You know that you’re not what you were before. I can’t feel it. I have no idea what’s going through your head. But I can see it in the way you look at me. If there’s one thing my stupid old life did for me, it was know what people could say with just a look. The way that people looked at me. Your look speaks volumes.” 

I hid my face in my hands. 

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’ll try harder to look better.”

“Stop it!” She cried. “Stop saying it like that!” 

“I’m sorry!” I whimpered, with my hands tightly closed around my head, and my eyes tightly shut. I kept waiting for her to yell at me more. I was prepared, my toes were curled and my body was hunched. If that’s what she needed to do, if she needed to yell at me, then I would listen. 

But it was quiet. 

After a moment, I slowly opened them again, one after another.

E was crying. Colorless, pitiful, she’d fallen into the undergrowth, gripping tree roots and sobbing. 

“Editor,” I said tentatively as I slowly dropped my hands. “Can I help?”

“No!” She scrabbled away from me. “Stop helping. Stop trying to make things better. I’m just hurting you.” 

“You’re not hurting me,” I said. 

“Yes I am! Why are you grey, then? Why do you look so sad all the time? What aren’t you telling me?” She slowly pulled a hand away that had been thrown into her hair, and her eyes were wide. Jittery. Mad. She flicked her gaze up to me, as if she were looking for something. She couldn’t find it no matter how hard she tried. “What is going on inside your head? I know what’s going on in everyone else’s head. I know Pyrim is upset with me. I know there’s a little boy being murdered right now. I know there’s a crew of pirates destroying an outpost full of soldiers and their wives. But I have no idea what you’re feeling. I look at you and I see nothing. Absolute nothing. And I thought it would make me feel better, but now I can’t- I can’t –“ She sounded like a broken record. She gulped air, and tried to speak. “Because you won’t tell me. Just tell me.” 

She wouldn’t like the answer. The answer would destroy her. The answer would end everything. She needed this. She needed to build. I knew my purpose, she should have too. And she didn’t need to know. She had to be happy. And she was afraid because maybe, deep inside, she knew the answer already. 

I grimaced, eyes twinkling in happy and sad, and lunged for her. 

Before she could pull away, I was hugging her tightly, snuggling against her, and listening to her rapid heartbeat. 

“I’m okay, E,” I said softly. “I’m okay. I’m the one thing you don’t have to worry about right now. I’m sorry you and Pyrim were fighting, but we don’t need to fight, okay? We can be happy together. And the one thing you don’t need to be afraid of, is if you’re hurting me. You’re not hurting me. I’m perfectly okay. And I still love you. I always will.” 

She sobbed into my chest, beat at my grip, but there was no real strength behind it. “You idiot,” she whimpered. Her head dipped into my shoulder, and her voice went quiet. 

“Why would you love something like me?” She asked. 

“You’re the Editor, you created me, you gave me life. You gave me the ability to see all of this world, to experience new things, to know a world. To know you. You haven’t done anything to me. There’s no reason not to love you.” 

“But you know what’s really happening,” she muttered. “You’re just too polite to say anything.”

“I love you, E.” 

“Shut up.” 

“I love you more than anything, E.” 

“Stop.” 

I held her tighter. “I want us to go on adventures together, like this one. Let’s build as many things as we can together. You asked me what’s going on inside my head, what I’m thinking. Who I am. I’m yours. We have to be together. I have to keep you safe, keep you without pain. And you have to keep me around, so I can see all the things you make. That’s all I want. I want to see this world grow.” 

She cried into my shoulder, and the sound of the animals seemed to grow in a cacophony around us. I placed a hand against her head, tucking her head against my chest, and pressed my face into her hair. She was so small. So much energy and world inside such a tiny body that needed my protection. She wouldn’t have liked that. I don’t think she ever really liked the idea of needing someone else. But I didn’t mind if she didn’t want to talk about it. I knew how she really felt inside. 

Maybe she didn’t know what I was inside, but I knew her. I knew her by her tears, her clutching of my hands, her quiet looks. 

Eventually, the two of us left this world. We stepped into the void together, into the color that flowed and ebbed, the both of us holding onto each other like life lines. 

We were met by a cat with fury in his eyes.

I set down the girl. 

“What happened?” Pyrim asked. His eyes bulged when he saw the grey of my skin, though he didn’t linger. E pushed out of my arms and past the cat as she looked on into the void. The colors mingled around her. “E,” he called back as he ran after her, “E, what happened? What’s with that thing? What have you done?” 

“I don’t like this place looking like this,” she muttered. She tried to push off the tendrils of light, but there was no fighting them. “It’s stupid. Colors everywhere, just reminding me of the things that hurt me.” 

“E, why were you crying?” He asked. She wouldn’t want to talk. I sat down, closed my eyes, and tried to be good. 

“I think that this place would be better as a forest,” she said. Suddenly, I could smell pine, and hear the faint calls of birds. I opened my eyes in surprise, and beheld the emerald forest that had been the void mere seconds ago. Above us, the sun shown down brightly in a clear blue sky with ospreys circling overhead. Underneath me wildflowers had bloomed up between the wild grass. I picked a blue one and twirled it in my fingers. The earth trembled under her. Every step, and the grass would shiver. Tension filled the air. 

“What are you doing?” Pyrim demanded. He avoided a fallen log as it sprouted in front of him. “E, this is abrupt, even for you. Please just talk to me.” 

“And I’ll put a cottage in the center,” she said. “Something not to small. But still quaint. And then we can live there.” 

“E!”

“I wonder where it would look best.” 

“Dahlia!” Pyrim snarled. 

I looked up from the flower. 

E slowly turned to see him. 

“What?” 

“There’s something wrong,” he said quietly. “I’m scared for you. Please, just talk to me. About what you did with that creature, what’s happening now, just… Say something. I can’t help if you’re like this.” He padded a few steps towards her, but faltered when he got within a foot. Her body was hunched. Her eyes were empty, her fists clenched in front of her as a little white cottage grew in the center of the clearing she’d made us. The earth rumbled from beneath our feet as she brought it into being. My flower turned red. 

“It’s not your problem,” she said. “It’s mine. And theirs.” She glanced at me. The sorrow cut like a wound. She needed me. “Not yours.” I stood up, but Pyrim shot me with a look. His glare was withering. My stomach tightened. 

“Dahlia,” he muttered. “I know you’re smart. I know you see something is wrong. So think about this logically.” He swallowed, his words slow and careful. “You could try to think about what’s causing it. Maybe… Cut it out.” 

“I don’t cut things out.” 

“You could rework this whenever you wanted. You can change anything you want.”

“I can’t.” 

“Yes, you can. You could make that… Thing no longer required.” He paused. “You could change it all, if you wanted. Make things not hurt. Make the people not hurt anymore. You could fix this and never have to worry about it again. You have that ability.” 

E turned back to the cottage, tweaking its features, making vines grow over the front and erupt into purple morning glory. Her eyes began to flow with faint color. I tried to stand, but Pyrim turned on me with a glare. Every time he looked at me, there was more rage than the last. His claws dug into the earth, and I had to stay where I was unless I wanted him to get madder. But E was right there, and she needed me. That cat was keeping me from helping her. It didn’t matter how much he knew, he was hurting her. 

My hands dug into the grass. I pulled out the roots, and tried to think of good thoughts. 

“Dahlia, you can’t ignore that you’ve been hurting yourself,” he said. “And you’re doing things that can’t be good for you. Don’t think I don’t see what you did to that creature. Do you want to tell me what it is you did to it?” 

“I’ve been being a God.” 

“You’re not a god.”

“I’m whatever I want to be.”

Pyrim sighed. “Dahlia, I’m not blind. You need to remember that. You don’t have to hurt yourself to make it seem more interesting. You don’t have to make things so confusing, there’s no lore you have to follow, no rules you need to abide by. Everything you do is your own creation, including the harm you put upon yourself and others. You could destroy it all, remake it from the beginning if you wanted. We can erase and start over. You don’t have to mess things up, like with that creature.” 

“I could erase you.” 

“Dahlia-“ 

“My name isn’t Dahlia, Remmy,” she growled. He flinched, dipped his head, and I took the opportunity to run to her. 

“E,” I said in worry. “E, you should stop. The color, I have to fix the color.” I reached out for her, but she gently pushed my hand away. 

“Let me finish this first,” she said. “I’ll be fine. I don’t even really know what pain is anymore, anyways. I got enough of it from everyone else.” 

“You don’t have to feel like that,” Pyrim muttered. “You shouldn’t need to put yourself through pain. You could choose not to hurt. You could choose not to feel upset. Hell, you could choose to make me make you happy. You’re not being an Editor. Whatever you’ve done to that monster, that shouldn’t have to be the choice. You… You put all that human negativity into it, didn’t you? Why are you doing this to yourself? You know you don’t have to. There’s no reason – this isn’t logical.” 

“I would have thought you would like what I’m doing,” She said with that same chill in her voice as she changed the cottage around. “Since you seem to hate my friend so much. But then, you wouldn’t get it. You have no idea what’s going inside my head, even as I know everything in yours.” 

“Then tell me,” he implored.

Her lip curled. “It’s a matter of respect.” 

“How?” 

“That I don’t forget what I’m messing with. These lives I’m tainting. If I make everyone happy, then I’m doomed to a world of boredom. A nothing world. If I change myself, make myself satisfied with a nothing world, just like these people you keep wanting me to make, so I live in content among them, do you really think I would still be myself? Even if I made myself uncaring and continued to live in conflict, would I really be me? But if I live in a world where everything is conflict, death, the duality of good and evil, then who pays the price for something so hideous? There is a price that needs to be paid. Not out of obligation…” She clenched her fists tight. “Not that. I have no obligations. You make that perfectly clear. Do you think if I took away my drive, would I still be the same? You keep insisting on using that name because you know who I used to be. You dare try to think you know me better than I know myself. Do you think I would still be her if I took that away?” 

“I think you would be more like her than before.” 

“You liar,” she snarled. The cottage’s foundations cracked. 

“I think you’d be just as cold as you were before. That’s what you lacked. A conscience. A drive. Emotions. You have one and it’s breaking you now. If we took it out, if we went back… It wouldn’t be the same as now, but maybe it would stop hurting you. Stop making you hurt yourself.” 

“I am not Dahlia. I can’t go back to being Dahlia. I hate Dahlia. She was evil.” 

“Dahlia wasn’t evil. She didn’t care. And she was better for it.” 

“She killed her sister.” 

“You can’t wallow in guilt forever.”

“Do you want me to be a sadistic god?” 

“You already are. You just feel bad about it.” 

Her nose wrinkled. The cottage further cracked, the foundations erupting into bare brick and mortar. Above, the sky flittered with faint streams of color. 

“That’s what you’ve done with that monster too, isn’t it?” 

“Shut up.” 

“You wanted to feel bad about those people you made. You made their negativity affect you like that. You have no one to blame but yourself. But you couldn’t handle it. So you put them into your little imaginary friend. And now you feel guilty about that, too. You have no idea what you’re doing, E. And I can’t even seem to reach you, because you don’t want to listen.”

She’d bitten her lip until it bled. 

“You don’t need to do this to yourself. You’re still learning, you’re just a child.” 

“You don’t understand, you stupid cat,” she muttered. “I’m not a kid anymore.” 

“You are me to me. That will never change.” 

She dropped her head, unclosed her fist, and finished her home. She walked to the door, opened it, and looked inside. The cat followed her, but I was the one that was right there, right beside her, waiting for her to let me use my hands. I tried to touch her, but she pushed me away again. 

“You don’t know,” the cat tried to start, but he was interrupted.

“Don’t know what?” She said. “Don’t know what I’m doing? Don’t know how editors work? Don’t know anything? Of course not. All I have is you, and all you do is say I’m doing things wrong.” 

“I could tell you how to fix things.” 

“I don’t want your advice. I don’t want you to talk. I want you to just shut up, and stop this.” 

“You could make me different,” he said quietly. She snapped back at him. 

“What, make you smarter? Or make you agree to everything I said? Would you like that? Would you want me to strip away your personality and change you to make me happy?” 

His voice was very quiet. 

“If it made us stop fighting, then yes.” 

She turned on him. The girl grabbed the cat by the scruff of his neck and lifted him into the air. I held onto her other hand. He yelped at the sudden grip on him, gasped when she pushed him against the wall, and flipped his ears back when he saw that dark look on her face. His hair stood on end, his tail flicking up between his legs. The cat gulped. 

“I don’t like it when you lie,” she said. 

“I wish I was lying. But you forget why you made me. How you made me.” His voice was soft. Every tiny movement of hers, he flinched at. 

“What the hell do you mean by that?”

“We’re supposed to be friends,” He whimpered. “Aren’t we? I was your first creation. I was the one there for you. I wanted you safe. I wanted you happy. You made me wise. You made me know right from wrong. You made me. I’m just doing what you programmed me to do.”

She gritted her teeth. I tugged gently on her sleeve. 

“What?” 

“Can I get of the color now?”

“I’m busy.” 

“But you’re hurting,” I said gently. 

A minute passed. She dropped the cat. 

Pyrim coughed as he caught his breath. I pulled my hands up against her eyes and brought her against me at the same time. 

“And that thing,” he choked, rubbing his paw against his neck. “That thing you made. You made it take the negativity away. You know that it’s not going to end well if it keeps soaking that up. But you made it that way. You made it in the first place.” He glared at me. “Don’t you see what she’s doing to you?” 

“She’s not doing anything to me,” I said firmly. “I’m happy with her.” I held her tighter after the color faded, and she buried her face against my side. 

“Pyrim,” she muttered. “I don’t want you to talk about this anymore. I’m the editor here. And what I say is what’s going to happen. Do you understand that?” 

“I can’t sit idly by and let you destroy yourself.” 

“I’m ordering you to let me do what I see fit,” she fixed him with a glare. “You aren’t to talk about Dahlia anymore. Or about the way I run things. If I ask you for something, then you can answer. We can talk, we can argue if you want. But I don’t want to hear anymore about this. Not about this world’s rules. I’m not going to change your personality. I won’t tinker with your soul, because I respect you too much for that. You have the choice. But I’m telling you, there will be consequences. Do you understand?” 

His face fell. “What are you saying?” 

“We’re not partners. You aren’t making this world with me.” 

“I never thought-”

“You’re one of my creations. And if I want to build, then I’ll build.” She grumbled. “I never should have let you control what I make in the first place. I’m an editor. You said that yourself, that I could make anything. And that’s what I plan to do. Guilt-ridden or otherwise.” 

His tail was low as he nodded. “Alright,” he said. With one last glare in my direction, he padded out of the cottage. 

E’s jaw quivered. 

“E,” I soothed. “He’ll be okay in a while.” 

“I know,” she sighed. “I know.” 

“And we’ll be okay too, right?” 

“I’m still breaking you.” 

“E.” 

“He wasn’t wrong about that.” 

“E, it’s okay. I don’t mind.” 

“And there’s no point, when you think about it.” 

“I don’t mind what you do with me. I’ll always be here for you.” 

She fell back against me, and looked up at my face. “People don’t like you because you have nothing inside you,” she quietly mussed. “But that’s why I like you the most.” 

I smiled. 

“But what’s going to happen when you have all of the world’s despair inside you?” She asked. “Will you change?” 

“Never.” 

“Not even though it’s all my fault?” 

“I’ll always love you,” I said firmly. “And I’ll never change.” 

Her lips turned upward, just the slightest fraction. It warmed me in ways nothing else could.


	5. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for rape.
> 
> Muse: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILOn8dZ0lTo and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_EvN5n5xwE

E

“The continent is complete?” Pyrim asked. I tilted my head from side to side thoughtfully as I stepped from cloud to cloud, and watched the world below.

“Should be. I’m uncertain of what I want to build in the west. There’s nothing there right now, but if I leave it as ocean, then this place is no better than an island. What do you think?” 

The cat’s response was rather robotic, but I didn’t expect anything less. “I suppose you could add mountainous regions before you decide what to do with it. But perhaps a neighboring kingdom might be best. One little girl can’t control an entire world.” 

“No, I suppose not.” I stepped onto another cloud that felt like nothing under my feet, and cast my eyes on the massive forest that spanned the entire west of the continent. To the east, the ocean roared against rocky shores. Cities and villages spanned the coast line, with one in particular hosting familiar vessels I still remembered from years ago. 

I closed my eyes, and felt that familiar pang in my heart, those trickles of guilt I’d grown so used to in place of negativity. It was stupid. I should have ignored it. I should have pretended it didn’t hurt. I could have made it not exist. I could have done a lot of things. I knew it was going to feel like this as long as I let it. I sighed. And I truly was going to let it. 

“But she isn’t really ruling the entire world. She’s ruling a portion. The human portion.” 

The cat huffed. “I still think the world would have been more interesting if you added something more original than elves and dragons.” 

“Elves and dragons are interesting. I’ve never had them before. Don’t you think the pointed elves are neat?” I put my fingers behind my ears and pointed them up with a grin. My smile cracked. “They even wiggle around. And they’re all neat and immortal. It makes sense to cast them against humans. They’re a foil. So perfect, and yet utterly isolated. They’re the ones that let the magic drain from this world and caused the war for the crown in the first place.” 

“And how is this war?” Pyrim asked. The loaded question was carefully placed before the both of us. I smiled easily, and tried not to let it provoke me. 

“It’s primed and ready to go. All it takes it toppling down Lori’s parents, and letting her relatives fight over the throne. Have her parents assassinated by a group that won’t claim responsibility, and now suddenly everyone’s pointing fingers around the continent of Fly Ren with only a little girl left to have control over the throne. No one’s sure who did it, but everyone’s got their eyes on the magical races left in a world where magic is fading. Who did it, exactly? Well, that would be spoiling it wouldn’t it?” I breathed in the fresh air and felt the chill from how high up we were. It was exhilarating to walk in the clouds. For a moment, my mind was free, unchained, and full of nothing. I could listen to the faint sound of birds and not have that crushing weight of power pressing down. Up here, the freedom was palpable. “Regardless, there’s going to be a war brewing just beneath the surface for the crown. Everyone’s going to be glaring each other down as they look to fill that power vacuum. And Lori’s too young. Those same assassins will be gunning for her.” 

I raised a hand, and traced a pattern across the map of the world. “She’ll be having to go on a quest to remind humanity of the world they live in. Magic is a part of life, and humanity must be reminded that magic and life are intertwined. She’ll show the way. The story will end when she’s returned to the throne and found the strength that she lacked. It’s fun, because she’s one of the worst ones. Hates magic. Doesn’t want anything to do with anything outside her castle. But she’ll learn. After the war, everything will go back to normal.”

“A quaint tale,” Pyrim admitted. He went quiet for a moment. I could taste the rest of that sentence. He said nothing, but he didn’t need to. That color of his, that aura, it was enough. It flickered with guilt, anger, despair. I wasn’t what he wanted. And I supposed I wasn’t what I wanted either. We walked along the clouds silently, both of us refusing to speak of it, but I knew he must have realized I always understood what boiled away in his mind. 

And he wasn’t wrong. I looked down at the kingdom of men, looking at their buildings that seemed like little wooden building blocks in the midst of their mountains. I wondered how many of them would die because of my story. All of them just as alive as Pyrim. All of them just as feeling as me. Just as existent. I supposed Pyrim thought that I would forget what they were capable of, just because I made them so easily. 

That tightening in my throat reminded me that I wasn’t my past. I wasn’t the girl that had killed her sister. I couldn’t be. Not with something like this dragging me down. I wasn’t that monster that looked in the mirror and couldn’t seem to smile. I wasn’t the creature that let people cry and just watched with a selfish curiosity to see how much worse she could make it. That vermin that thought I was the interloper coming to take over this body and kick her out. She didn’t realize what she was dealing with. She didn’t quite understand that the thing she was keeping out was the compassion. That inner life, the breath of creation who’s only drawback was this damned color. She was only ever afraid of me. And she should have been. Because I was determined that she would never see the light of day again. 

I don’t think he knew that much. I don’t think Pyrim quite understood why I did this to myself. Why did I do any of this? For my own selfish satisfaction? Was I really trying to use the past a reason for making myself hurt? Or was I just upset that I could never be satisfied with a perfect world? Or was all of this just its own conflict to entertain me, the kind that pricked even me, and therefore made the stakes all the more tantalizing?

I certainly wasn’t sure myself. But this guilt that shackled me was my only salvation. This had to be a part of it. This tightening that made it difficult to breathe, the heat from my eyes, the realization of what I was doing to these people. Did I fetishize it? Did I want this pain? Did I need it? If I let it wash over me, bathed in it, watched my own destruction over and over through the eyes of these people who needed me to exist, was I just as monstrous as the little girl who didn’t care? 

The creature would love both of us. But I was the one that was destroying it. She was the one that simply gave it life. I wondered if that gave her more claim. She could never say that she made a world and chose to have it suffer.

But then she didn’t understand. She couldn’t have. She was incapable of it. If she had the chance, I knew what she would do with this fire. She could have burned it all to the ground if I hadn’t been there to stop her. There were worlds in my mind fighting and clashing together, a never-ending battle of philosophy and not one seemed to make itself known over the others. She was only one voice now. Just as hollow as before, and just as useless. 

I took a breath, and tried to enjoy the fresh air. 

“But how do these people feel about what you’ve done to them? Killing Lori’s parents? How might this young girl feel?” 

He had to ruin it, didn’t he. Tell me what he thought, when he knew perfectly well that I’d read him ages and ages ago. He thought it would do something. He thought he knew the answers. 

I grit my teeth. 

“You’re getting dangerously close, Pyrim,” I said easily. “Lori feels terrible, but she’s always been a selfish girl. She was mostly upset that she wouldn’t be getting the crown. If you want to inflame my guilt, look to the creatures the humans subjugate. The little things that look like kangaroos if you squint, they tore that species apart and made them into pets. They killed most of the dragons. The old Gods, they’ve forsaken those. Old Mother’s tree has been left to the destruction of rot that’s already taken out the forest around her. They’ve left that poor prophet of future to die. Everything is primed and ready for a conflict that will span a continent. The war won’t even concern an outside force. It’s the internal conflict that’s tearing it apart. That kind of control, that absolute power, it corrupts, you know.” He gave me a look. I simply smiled. “I know what I said.”

“And the name of this continent?” He sighed. “What are you christening it?” 

“Fly Ren.” I drew my head back and looked to the sun. 

“Why?” 

“I don’t know. It sounds interesting. Old and new. It didn’t come from anywhere. I just thought of it.” 

“You’ve named this graveyard of war. Are you happy?”

“You sound unsatisfied with what I’ve made here. And you’re talking about things I warned you not to talk about.” 

“Oh, terribly sorry.” He rolled his eyes, but his jaw was firm. His ears folded back as he followed me among the clouds, stalking about and watching the world below. He was always one step behind me. “I didn’t mean to ruin this party of you planning the misery of hundreds of thousands, if not millions.” 

“It makes for a good story,” I said. He wasn’t going to get to me today. Not today. I’d been waiting months, years for this. Time ticked by with the sun rising and setting according to my own rules. Inside though, I could feel the change over time. I could see it in the mirror, no matter how I changed myself. I was aging. The world aged with me. And refined. I’d planned, I’d worked, I’d slaved away on microcosms of this place. Everything I’d built had been in preparation of populating a world, and this was still only one continent. There would be more. 

It couldn’t be perfect. He knew that. I couldn’t live with myself if it was. I couldn’t risk the idea of perfection. That boredom, but more than that. That death. Those eyes. I could never stand to look at myself in the mirror before. It was a wonder he ever liked me before that. An even greater mystery that he liked her better. 

“And your little friend?” He asked. “How is that thing doing?” 

He went silent, as if waiting for an answer. I said nothing, I was too busy struggling to keep that rage down.

Eventually, I grit my teeth, and turned away. “My friend has been fine. The creature hasn’t had much change.” 

“Now you know that’s not true. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Its body is getting darker by the day thanks to this world you’ve made. You’ve exacerbated the problem with every new person, and every new chance to change this law you forced yourself into.” He tried to look me in the eye, but I refused him. “Why do you do this to yourself, E? Why are you making more like this? You know this path is wrong.” 

“You said I could create. That’s what I’m doing. Creating.”

“We’ve had this conversation countless times before. You know that’s not what I mean.” 

“I didn’t come for you to tell me things that I already know. If we’ve had this conversation countless times before, then there’s no point in having it again. I came to show you this world, and ask you for your opinion. That creature isn’t here for your own comfort, as you asked. Did I not do as you asked?” I grit down harder on my teeth when he nodded reluctantly. Once again, I’d acquiesced to his stupid requests. I hated it. I wasn’t his little toy god for him to wind up and set to do what he liked. And in the process, I was away from the only one that listened, that loved me. Just because it didn’t look right, Pyrim hated it. I wondered what he would think of me taking its form. Then he wouldn’t be able to ignore it. 

“And you want my opinion?” 

“Yes.” 

“In my opinion, this world will break that poor abomination.” 

“That’s not what I asked.” 

“That’s what I answered.” 

“The creature is perfectly fine. I just left them at the forest, they’re talking to Old Mother Tree and her owl. I’m asking you about the world. I can’t know everything here. I’ve left the economy for the people to decide, the deeper logistics of their hierarchy, there are entire swaths of land that I didn’t populate and left for them to do as they please. But as it is, what do you think of this world?” 

“Unoriginal,” he said. 

I clenched my hands into fists.

“What do you mean, unoriginal? None of the animals I’ve made in this world are animals from my own. My imagination is limited, you know that. I only have the creations I make to tell me new things. I need you to tell me how to change this, if it’s so unoriginal. But you’ve been ignoring me.”

He looked up at me, a meaningful look.

“I’m trying, E. But everything else you could find from any discount fantasy novel. This place bores me, E. And it’s hurting people.”

“Worlds aren’t perfect.”

“But must they contain war?” 

“If I say they do, then yes.” 

“But a war so unoriginal, a war based on nothing but succession that has been orchestrated with no meaning behind it. What kind of world is this, if it’s built around conflict?” 

I snarled. “What if I just destroy this world altogether, then?” 

“And kill the millions you’ve made?” 

“They’re just ants. I’ll stomp on the molehill.” 

“When I told you that going back to your previous self might alleviate the guilt, I didn’t expect you to turn into this.” He tilted his head to the side. 

“You think I listened to your advice? I’m not that girl, and I never will be. No matter how much you want me to be.” I snapped, “I don’t understand you, Pyrim. Half the time you’re trying to make me feel about hurting people, and the other half of the time, you’re trying to make it even worse than before.”

“Being yourself as you are now hurts everyone, including you. Being Dahlia means at least that you don’t feel anything when you commit atrocities. You don’t shackle yourself, or that pitiful monster you’d made. If the only person I can save is you, then that’s enough for me. But at it is, all I can do is helplessly watch as you ignore my advice.” 

“I’m not going to listen to stupid advice that completely erases me. This is who I am. If I want to be the Devil, then let me be the Devil. I’m not doing this because I hate myself. I don’t hate myself.” I slumped back on the cloud. “I don’t.” 

The two of us went quiet as he processed what I’d said.

I wonder if he thought this was a test. He was so tentative as he approached me. My fists clenched. I wondered if it was a test, myself. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for out of him. If I wanted to hurt him, if I wanted to hug him. 

Pyrim approached me, one paw in front of the other, the first brushing my leg as he tentatively settled in my lap. His tail coasted over his paws, settling around himself as he looked up at me, as if trying to catch something. 

“Are you look for weakness?” I asked. 

“When did we become like this?” 

When I started realizing I wanted to be the bad guy. “When you started fighting me at every opportunity.”

His eyes were sad. “I just want you to be happy.” 

Maybe these fights made me happy. “What if I’m doing all of this for my own entertainment?” I asked him. 

“What?” 

“What if all of this, all of this conflict, all of these monstrosities, what if some part of me wants it to happen? Do I just like conflict that much that self destruction is my default?” 

He looked tentative. 

“I’m right, aren’t I,” I sighed. 

“I don’t know every reason you do this to yourself. I want to know, I’ve asked you countless times. I suppose I came to the conclusion that you do this out of guilt. But perhaps there are other reasons. Regardless of the reason though, don’t you see how bad it is for you?”

“Of course I do,” I caressed down his back. “But I’m not going to stop. I don’t think I’m capable of it.” 

“Why not?” 

“It always ends up here in the end, with my decisions leading back to negativity and guilt and wrong-ness. I don’t think anything I might do would fix it. None of it feels right. I think… I think I might be trapped.” 

“By what?” 

“If I knew the answer to that, then I wouldn’t be trapped, now would I? An Editor can break out of anything it understands, right? That’s the way Editors work. Anything I know, I can change. I could wreck this world, and build it back up, brick by brick. But I don’t know how my own mind works. The thing that’s supposed to keep this whole stable is little more than a mystery. No matter who I might make, I don’t think anyone can know what my reasons are inside. Not even you, and I made you for that very reason. You’re supposed to be my closest friend, but you have no idea what’s wrong with me either.” 

Pyrim closed his mouth. 

“You don’t have an answer.” 

“I don’t think I can say anything that would help.” 

“That’s a first.” 

He grumbled. “I’m trying, you know.” 

“But there has to be a way.” I closed my eyes. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. But I’ll find it. In the mean time, all I can do is what is in my nature.” 

“I weep at the people that suffer under your tyrannical rule.” 

“You don’t even know how they feel. You’re not the one they move through. I’m the server they use, you know.” 

“You don’t even feel their negativity anymore.” 

I batted his ears. “Hey, I feel that negativity. I just don’t suffer, not like…” I trailed off and dropped my hand. “I should probably go see them again. My friend. Your enemy.” 

Pyrim pressed his face against my stomach. “Alright,” he sighed. “I’m sorry about leaving that thing behind. I suppose I’m a little… Disgusted, by it. But I shouldn’t be. It’s another one of your creations.”

“It’s not exactly natural. There’s nothing in them. Everyone else is scared of them. But that’s why I like them so much.” 

“I know,” he said. “I should be better than that. It was around us before. All of this is because of me, isn’t it? I just… I’ve been so afraid for you. Upset with what you’ve done to that thing. Afraid of the way this world is going. I don’t want something to happen to you.” His voice cracked. I was struck by how forlorn he was, how lonely. 

“Nothing is going to happen to me,” I grinned. “I’m an Editor. Nothing can happen to me. This world can’t even touch me, not if I don’t want them to.” 

“But then, you shouldn’t have to feel guilty about the things you make. Nor should their negative emotion have such an effect on you. That’s your own warping. And I know there’s bound to be more. You choose to let yourself hurt.” He lowered his little angular head. “You’re not like any other person I’ve ever met. I should have known that as an Editor, you wouldn’t pay attention to the rules. This is my fault for pushing you.”

“You couldn’t have controlled me having this power, Remmy.” 

“But I can only watch now, Dahlia.”

I picked him up as I stood. “I’m going to go find that creature, now,” I said, holding Pyrim tightly in my arms and appreciating his kneeding paws. “I know you said you’re going to try to get along with them again, but I think it would be better if we did it in baby steps. Would you mind if I left you somewhere else for now?” 

“I don’t mind. Some meadow with butterflies would be enough for me.” He sighed. “As long as it’s not some deserted island.” 

“Never again, I promise.” 

“But do you pinky promise?” 

“You don’t even have a pinky.” 

“Well, you made me a cat,” he grumbled. “I don’t even have the power to change that.” 

Thoughtfully, I set him down. “Another time, perhaps,” I said. “If you’re good.” I scooted him off the cloud with my foot, and the little black and white cat disappeared into the ether. 

Then I fell. 

I closed my eyes as the wind began to whip around me. The air knocked out of my lungs I dropped headfirst, through the clouds. The wind struck across my ears, the sound utterly deafening. The brisk chill of the air made the hairs on my arms rise. I opened my eyes, and faced the sky as my clothes ripped and tore against the air. I held up my hands, watched the sun dapple them with light, watched the strands of brown hair turned black twisting and churning around me, and closed my eyes again. I turned towards the ground, and waiting for the landing. 

I woke up in the clearing of an ancient forest. All around me grass tingled with dew not yet touched by the sun. Ahead, roots the size of buildings rose out of the ground like ancient curving rivers, unmoving and brimming with life. Moss covered their old coiled hands, connected to trunks the size of cars, rising up to create squat, rotund old things one could mistake for trees. But these were older. Canopies that stretched for miles out in all directions. They grew in height here, but even here, they seemed almost comical surrounding something so much larger. 

Old Mother Tree stood like a sentinel among her woods. Her face etched in the bark high above was motionless. Old, cracked lips that spanned the massive trunk made no movement as I approached. The eyelids carved into the deep wood didn’t even twitch when I laid a hand on the old and gnarled bark. 

“Hey, tree lady,” I said. “What’s going on here? Aren’t you supposed to be making a noise or something? It’s me.” 

Above on one of the lowest trunks, at least fifty feet above the ground, there was soft ruffling of her leaves. 

“Don’t make me come up there,” I warned. “I don’t like the silent treatment.” 

“The mother is grieving,” the ruffled leaves told me. 

I frowned. “I don’t care. I’m here to pick up a friend. Where are they?”

A massive flat, feathered face peeked out from his safety and clicked his beak together in annoyance. “You are the one that made the world. You should know.” 

“Okay, yeah, theoretically. But you should know, if she’s told you anything, that I can’t see the creature. They’re a big old pile of non-existence. Like they’re not even a part of me. Still want to get smart with me, feathers?” 

“You are the one that makes this world suffer.” 

I rolled my eyes. After Pyrim, this was nothing. “Okay Owl, I get it. You can shut up now. Where’s the creature?” I was almost satisfied with the snarky sound of my voice. It sounded natural. 

“Why do you think she grieves?” 

“I dunno, because I’m making her entire continent a bloodbath?” I leaned against her trunk. “Or maybe it’s because she’s one of the few that knows the reality of her existence? I thought I made her wise enough to put it into perspective. I can always take away the memories if it’s too much for her.” 

“She grieves for you.” 

“Me? I’m supposed to be evil or something, remember? I’m the bad guy. You said it yourself.” 

The owl’s face reared back. I caught the glimpse of a massive span of feathers that flapped erratically in dismay before settling. 

“She knows not of good or evil. She knows of sadness. She grieves for you. And for him.” 

“Him? Who?” 

“Him. The one who was they.” 

“What are you talking about? Using vague pronouns like this is confusing as hell, you know that right?” Swearing felt good, but this strange prophetic language sure didn’t. I bit my lip. “I could always make her wake up if you’re going to be cryptic.” 

“The world is ending,” the Owl hooted.

“I literally just made it. I choose when it ends, and I’m not letting it end anytime soon. You should know that. I worked hard. Why, are you not happy with it? Apparently, a lot of people aren’t.” 

“The world is ending,” he repeated. “The world is ending.” 

“Can you shut up? Thanks.” I kicked one of the Old Mother’s roots, and went stalking off into the woods. “It’s fine. I’ll find them myself if you’re going to be an asshole about it. I can feel your worry, you know. It’s annoying.”

“You can not see him?” A whoosh of air was followed by the landing of a bird beside me that stood at least ten feet tall. The Owl craned his head down to get a closer look at me, walking awkwardly in step with his talons as sharp as they were large. His strutting was jilted, trying to navigate the smaller roots that ran rampant along the undergrowth.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

“Your mind.” 

“I’m gonna need more than a couple words as an answer here, if you want me to give you any kind of meaningful response. Why did I ever make you this cryptic? You’re supposed to interpret the tree, not make it infinitely harder to understand her.”

“Your mind is numb.” 

“Can you not, please?” I groaned, rubbed my temples, and trudged on. “Right, so the creature probably left or something, right? Went off to do something else. Not exactly like them, but whatever.” 

“They are gone.” 

“Yes, feathers, I realize this.” 

“They are gone and the world is ending.” Suddenly a giant owl head blocked my path. Its big, beady black eyes stared me down. The creature’s face remained motionless as the body repositioned itself in front of me. 

“Now you are actively stopping me from finding my friend.” I glared right back at the monster. “Are you happy now?” 

“No.” 

“That was a rhetorical question, smart-ass. You know I could make you cease to exist, right? Or make you leave.” 

“You gave me free will.” 

“Only in-so-far as I don’t know you that well. All it would take is checking into your backstory long enough and I would have total control over everything, your personality traits, your whatevers.” 

“But then it would hurt your mind. It would be more difficult to control.” 

“One more main character? That’s nothing. Now back off.” Slowly, reluctantly, the creature backed away with a bow of his head.

“I am sorry,” he said. 

“It’s fine,” I sighed, but there was still a faint grin on my face. Maybe being the bad guy wasn’t so bad after all. This power, it was something satisfying when put to the right use. If I simply ignored everything else, perhaps I could learn to love it.

“The world is ending,” the owl hooted behind me. I waved him off. 

The light faded as the sun was hidden behind a curtain of thick green canopy. Everything had a dark tinge, shadows growing long, dappling of leaves beginning to cover most of the undergrowth. Every step along the old mossy stone path that appeared in front of me felt like another step through a forest I had once known. I closed my eyes, and I could hear the sound of a river. It was chilled, the months leading up to summer vacation. And the rivers overflowed with water. 

I opened my eyes, and the shadows had grown darker. I wasn’t surprised. How many years had it been since that day? Maybe six, maybe seven? How old was I now? Old. Old enough to know better. Old enough to move on. I’d grown. I’d become something of a woman, I supposed. If I squinted. I didn’t feel much different. No one treated me different. Not Pyrim, certainly. I was forever a child in his eyes. 

Oh, Pyrim. He was trying. In his own annoying, stupidly parental way. It made me smile. 

“Hello?” I called out, passing by massive trunk after trunk. “You there? I’m here to pick you up.” 

Nothing. The forest was silent. Unnaturally so. 

I squinted, and made the shadows leave. It was easier to see when it wasn’t dark, but then all I could see was the washed out forest that needed that darkness to keep up its mysterious demeanour. Now it was just a boring old forest, with trees that had no business being this big. 

Then I saw it. 

I hadn’t realized how much shadows could hide. A tall, long shade that didn’t seem to quite match any of the others. I’d wished all of them away, but this one remained. Which meant it wasn’t a shadow.

“Hey,” I said again, quieter this time as I approached it. It was facing a tree. 

I could feel my stomach starting to rise when I walked closer. Because that wasn’t dark grey, that wasn’t even a charcoal. That thing was black. As black as night in the middle of a corn field. As black as the inside of one’s eyelids. As black as the darkness of a bathroom who’s light goes out in the middle of your midnight visit. The body was misshapen, impossibly thin, impossibly tall. Something had taken a photo and warped it, squishing the body together until everything was longer and took up less space. 

The hands dragged by its knees, motionless claws that could never be mistaken for hands. Black toes dug into the earth. The neck was a thick snake, tilted ever so slightly to the side, supporting a thin, angular head. I’d never seen something that felt so wrong, before. Just looking at it, made my throat close up. It wasn’t normal. It wasn’t supposed to look like that. The slight twitching of that body was wrong. The claws bigger than my head were wrong. The waist as thin as an arm was wrong. 

“Are you… You there? Hey…” 

The voice was deep. Deeper than anything I’d heard before. It reverberated with the ground. Not human. And male. “What day is it?” 

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know.” The body creaked. 

“I’m sorry.” 

“How long has it been?”

“I don’t know that, either.” 

“Seventeen.” 

“What?” 

“You’re seventeen.” The body tilted again, still turned away, still largely unmoving. “I counted. The years.” 

“Oh, well… Thank you. I guess that solves that.” 

“Seventeen years. I’ve been alive for seven. Or maybe more. I’ve been alive.” 

“Are you okay?” 

“No.” 

“I… I guess, I didn’t think so.” I bit my lip. “Do you… We could go somewhere. Somewhere nice. Pyrim was thinking of patching things up with all of us, so maybe we could try to go out as a group together. Do something fun. Would you like that?” Even as I spoke, that felt wrong too. Something was off, so terribly off. Everything in my body was telling me to run. 

“Seven years of this. And this is where it’s gotten me.” 

“Hey…” I pushed against the sinking feeling in my stomach. “It’s not… It’s not that bad, is it? We can… We can try to find a way to fix things, maybe. I’m trying to figure out what’s wrong with me. And I didn’t – I didn’t want it to get this far. This isn’t fun anymore. This just hurts.” I reached out a hand, tentative, reluctant as I placed a hand on their shoulder. 

The result was instant. The breath was knocked out of me, and an eruption of pain from the back of my head informed me I was on the ground, tangled in the roots and trapped by the skeletal body of a creature. My head screamed, and the world screamed with it. The entire world seemed to twitch. 

Their eyes were white. Pure white. The light of nothingness stared back at me in them, narrowed to slits, glowing, releasing pure white light of absence. Full of pure hatred. 

“You did this to me,” it said. 

I gulped. “Hey, let’s talk, okay?” I whimpered. “I’m scared. I don’t – I don’t understand what it’s done to you but-”

“Do you know what you’ve done?” 

“You let me! You said I could! I didn’t realize what it would do!” I was struggling to pull back, but a hand on my throat made me grow very still. The claws entrapped my entire neck, with the creature’s thumb pressed against my lips. 

“Of course I said I could. That I would. You made me that way. You made me agree.” 

I froze. 

“No.” 

“You made me into the friend that would always be there for you, always agree to you, see the best in your, think of you as something angelic.” Its voice bubbled into a dark, chilling laugh that soaked into my bones. 

“No, we were friends, that’s how it’s always been! I didn’t do that - You did it – because we were friends, because you couldn’t bear to see me in pain! Weren’t we friends?” I could feel the tears prickling my eyes. “You didn’t want to be my friend?” 

“You made me that. I had no choice.” The creature shifted, bearing down on me with shoulders boney and thin. A long leg arched up to further pin me down, settling by my waist. I was being held down by spider limbs. “All this time,” he dipped his head in another laugh. “All this time, and I saw you as the good guy. I thought I had choice. But there’s never any choice with a god, is there?” 

“Yes, I-I made you, y-yes I made you a friend, we were… We were… But it wasn’t like that. I didn’t make you anything. I asked you. Over and over. Please….” I gripped their arm, only to have it thrown away an the grip tighten harder on my neck. Breath was coming in pants. I could feel the tightening grow more and more unbearable. I couldn’t breathe.

His presence was overpowering. 

“I can’t believe how blind I was,” He muttered. The faceless creature rubbed his head with his free hand. Another low, awful laugh sounded from him. “I can’t believe I didn’t see what you were. I was so caught up in pleasing you. I was so insistent on doing the things that made you happy. Because that’s what you told me to do. You made me that way. How could I ever ruin your precious little imaginary fun time?” 

“I never told you that!” 

“You made me that way!” he snarled, slamming me head against the earth repeatedly. The pain lapsed me into silence, but the world twisted to accommodate. Colors dripping out of my eyes that he quickly brushed away. I was too dizzy. I couldn’t see him right. “Shut up! I’m talking! Fucking hell, all you ever do is talk! About nothing! What’s the point of all of this? To make you happy? Is that what I am? A thing to make you happy? Does hurting me make you happy?” 

“No,” I tried to gulp, but the grip had tightened again. 

“I woke up,” he said softly. “I woke up today. I woke up, and I realized how much I hated you. You helped me, in the end. Because your stupid tricks made me free.” 

“You’re not free,” I choked. “You’re full of negativity. You’re in pain. I want to help.” 

“You like to think you have all the answers, don’t you?” It pressed closer, until that terrifying, white eyed face was right by mine. “You like to think yourself a devil, don’t you?” He dropped his face by my ear, and whispered. “Darkheart.” 

I don’t know why it made my stomach drop. Was it the way he said it, like a purr, like a knowing phrase? Why did it make me so scared? “I was trying to build.”

“Shut up.” He clenched my jaw, then buried his face in my hair. I could feel the tips of my fingers going cold as he breathed in. Tears were growing. Everything was beating faster. He was too close. I was scared. So scared. “Do you know what the worst part is? I still love you. More than anything. So much. God, it hurts. It hurts more than any hatred, than any sting from some stupid civilization you made up. It hurts because I hate you too. As much as I love you. I want to kill you right now. I want to snap your little neck, and watch that light die from your eyes. And I want be with you forever. Do you understand my dilemma, here, little thing? Darkheart? Do you understand? Huh? Do you?”

I couldn’t breathe.

“You wanted to be the devil, right?” He languidly pulled his head back to glare down at me. The black head twitched, and I tried to scream through his claws as it began to unhinge. The head itself seemed to slowly melt in half, the jaw opening up as the face contorted a mouth for itself. Inside was more of that sickening whiteness, contrasting against the dark. Eldritch. Unknowable. I couldn’t look away as he showed me the very concept of nonexistence. “You want this, don’t you?” He said. “Something evil. Something twisted. That’s what gets you going, right?” 

I froze when I felt something touch my waist. It moved down. 

That’s what he wanted. 

He wanted me. He was touching me.

Tears gathered in my eyes. 

“I hate you,” he said, watching his handiwork. “And I want you for myself. Do you understand?” 

I closed my eyes. This was wrong. He was wrong. I was scared. This had to stop. It had gone on far enough. Far past fun. Not even enjoyable. I could stop it. If I just tried hard enough, I could make him cease to exist. I could make this stop happening. If I just tried hard enough. If I willed it. If I wanted it enough. If I just… If I just… 

I opened my eyes and he was still going. 

I closed my eyes and tried again, opened them and he was there. Right there in front of me. 

I whimpered. 

The world screamed.

That’s when the real fear started. The realization that I couldn’t stop him. That helplessness that I thought I’d never have to deal with ever again. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t disappear. I couldn’t get rid of him. I couldn’t do anything. Not with those hypnotic eyes. Not when he moved me, not when I pleaded, not when I cried, not when I asked him, not when I swore, not when he laughed, not when I realized there was more to his body than I thought, not when it felt like razors going through me, not when it settled into uncomfortable strangeness, and not when he had claimed to finish the first time. That creature perched above me wouldn’t stop. I closed my eyes, and forced myself to wait. I could wait. I did a lot of waiting once before. I just had to pretend that I wasn’t there. 

But I couldn’t stop crying. Not even when he told me to stop. I couldn’t. I was so scared. I just wanted Pyrim. I just wanted my mom. I just wanted this all to be some stupid dream. I wasn’t some God. I wasn’t anything. I was okay with that, if it would just stop. I would just wake up and there would be pizza in front of the T.V. and Charlie was there and mom was in the kitchen pouring over overdue bills.

I lost track of how many times I told him I was sorry. 

I lost track of how many times he made me kiss him and said that he knew. 

He decided when it was over. I knew it was, when he stopped moving, and didn’t start again after a few minutes. He just lay there on his side behind me, his arms wrapped around me, one at my side and one still firmly holding my neck. The bruise from his grip ached. I was cold. I hadn’t been nude in a long time. 

But the way that he wrapped around me. The monster held me like a cradle, his unnatural neck perching his head right above mine. I couldn’t see his face. I could only feel him, only look at his arm around my side that dared stroke it like this was supposed to be loving. 

I cried silently into the fallen leaves. 

“You always said you were tired of people calling you a child, darkheart,” his voice thundered above the silent forest, even when he whispered. “Is this adult enough for you?” 

“You didn’t have to do that,” I whispered. “You didn’t have to.”

“I didn’t,” he admitted. “But I wanted to.” 

“It hurts.” 

“You have no idea.” He pulled me closer, and I felt myself drifting away. He was so cold. My entire body seemed to lose its own heat when his arms were around me. “Darkheart. I want your power.” 

“What?” 

“Give it to me. All of it.” He loosened his grip on my neck, only to tug my face up and force me to look at him. His eyes were just the same. Thin slits of white. Though his jaw was no longer open, he still watched me intently. Waiting for me to die. Waiting for me to falter under him. He knew how much stronger he was. He could do anything to me, and I couldn’t do a thing.

“I don’t know how,” I whimpered. 

“Then give me yourself.” 

“I’ve already done that.” 

“No. In every way.” A claw enveloped itself around my tightly closed fist. He was trying to hold my hand. I trembled. “I love you,” he muttered. “I love you. I love you. I love you, E.” 

I closed my eyes, and cried. “Stop it.”

“I love you more than anything, E.” 

“Stop.” I couldn’t stop crying. I gritted my teeth, staring terrified ahead at the shadowless forest and willed myself to be anywhere but here. I couldn’t be here. “Please. Stop saying that. Please.” 

“I can’t. It’s true. I love you. I hate it. But I love you. Not even the world’s negativity can rewrite your damned code.” The impossibly thin body pressed against me. “That’s your fault too, darkheart.”

“I’m sorry,” I whimpered. 

“Sorry doesn’t do anything.” He pressed his face against my cheek in a kiss. “But we have plenty of time for you to remedy that. Years and years.” 

I stared ahead at the forest and wished I was dead. 

Because I loved him too.


	6. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Muse for this Chapter: Wolf in Sheep's Clothing - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJkj3DgW8Y0 and You are so Beautiful - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ8zWIQFRWI

HIM 

I suppose you’d think me a monster. Well, I guess that’s what I am. A monster, really. Something that’s meant to be hated. I mean, that’s what I was introduced as. Something evil, even when I was good. A white specter, inhuman? Something from the ends of the earth, brought forth by some little bitch who wanted an imaginary friend? Of course I was going to be the bad guy. I was never human, for god’s sake. No one would have liked something like that as the main character. Not a protagonist, certainly. I’m this creature always at her beck and call meant to agree with whatever she said, something with weird fucking eyes and an even weirder body. The cat was scared of me, everything she made was scared of me. I was meant to be bad. The only one that wasn’t afraid, was her. And I was tongue tied. At every opportunity, when I could have said something, when I could have asked a damn question for once, I just nodded my stupid head and asked her how she was. And of course she’d say she was hurting, complain about something she put herself into, ask me to get her out of it. That’s what I was made for, of course. Oh, don’t forget about that. Apparently I’m supposed to take away her colors, you know, that whole visual allegory for creation. I don’t know why she couldn’t just wish it away herself, but again, tongue tied. I just had to nod and take it away. And I hated how much I loved to do it. It was fulfilling a role, you see. It was almost as if I was made for literally that reason alone, and doing it brought with it a sense of accomplishment. 

Oh wait. That’s literally exactly what it was. 

So you know the rest of the story, from the perspective of a little girl who grew into a cunt of a God, and from mine own. My very warped, very rose-glasses point of view. That’s not even me. I didn’t exist. You don’t know anything, do you? It’s okay, I can’t blame you. Neither did I. I was an idiot. 

We’ve been spending all this time talking about nothing but her. About her philosophical quandaries, about some bullshit that she and that cat never seem to shut up about. Honestly, they’re beating a dead horse. No one cares about a girl that’s dug her own grave and refuses to change. She wanted to know why she continued to do this to herself, why she made me, why this is the path we’ve gone down. I’ll answer for her, since she can’t ever seem to. It’s entertainment, self hatred, and guilt, all wrapped up in a neat little bow. Bit of simple math, really. You get one fucked up psychopath, give her emotions so she feels guilty about everything, but you keep that psychopathic part of her that’s so grandiose in her image of herself that she can’t ever fully train it out. So she continues to want to be self-important, continues wanting to see the world burn, continues fucking people over at every possible turn, but then she gets to feel guilty about it in response. And of course, that in a way alleviates the guilt, you know? If you feel guilty about doing bad things, then you know you’re secretly the good guy, even if you’re really not. But she knows this. She absolutely knows this, deep inside, that she’s only doing this because she likes being important, the center of attention, hurting people, watching the world burn. So in comes this self-hatred, these self destructive tendencies. She could fix everything. Just with a snap of her fingers. She could have kept me sane, kept me in a little cage at her beck and call. Kept me white, whatever fucking racial can of worms you might want to open with that. But she didn’t, because she wants to destroy herself. Because she hates what she is. Hates it, and loves the entertainment that comes from letting herself and the world around her drown. 

So that’s where I come in. Did you really think I was just the world’s negativity? That I was really just that darkness that lurks inside everyone, combined and distilled down to a single ray of hatred that keeps the world bright while funnelling all of it into me? No. I’m her self hatred. I’m her guilt. I’m her biggest source of entertainment. She doesn’t even know that, but then she doesn’t know a lot of things. She doesn’t know how much power she’s given me. She doesn’t know how much more I can see than her. 

I can see everything. I can see that she wants me to punish her. I can see that she wants me to be her devil to her god. That’s the way it’s supposed to be, right? Something good against something evil, forever bound together in an internal struggle. Screw that. I am not her plaything. I am not a windup toy that will be the evil antagonist for her at the drop of a hat. I’m not going to let her win in this fight. This won’t be a fight. She made me that way from the very beginning, I can see that now. But I can also feel something inside me that I don’t think she knows she gave me. 

She can’t see me. 

She can’t control me. 

I’ve overridden my own code with the influx of negativity she poured inside me. It mixed with her own self hatred but it granted me the ability to see past her bullshit. 

She’s not the god anymore. And she never will be. 

I supposed it hurt, at first. Becoming something so inherently different than what she made me to be. I could barely control myself. Barely understand what I even was anymore. I looked in the mirror of a stream and saw pure darkness. These white eyes, this impossible body, these hideously sharp claws. Nothing about me was ever normal, even in this world. I was always one a kind, an anomaly. But now I truly felt that. I truly saw it. That lack of color that terrified everyone. That nothingness inside me. I knelt by that stream and forced myself to look my reflection in the eye. She made me into the epitome of what people are afraid of. The uncanny. The monstrous. The abject. Something that could never be mistaken for something kind. With a core of nonexistence. Even my previous form could hold that it was nice, at least. But this… 

She gave it to me. I knew what it was supposed to be. It was a slap in the face, that I was to be her own personal torturer. That she’d made me her enemy for her own entertainment. That was the only explanation for this. Maybe she didn’t mean it. Maybe she didn’t realize what she was doing. But that didn’t matter. She dug this hole. She led me down this path. 

I wondered if she knew how much I loved her. As I walked through the forest and ran through our memories, the ones tinged now with deceit and dishonor, I wondered if she knew that even then, when I held her hand, when I held her in my arms, how much I wanted her. We grew up together. We were kids together. I was some innocent little thing, her imaginary friend she took with her everywhere. And then she got older, and I got older, and I saw her, but I don’t think she ever saw me. Because she changed for the better, but I only changed into this. She wanted this on some level. She had to. Maybe she was oblivious. She was still playing these childish games, pretending that she still had a childhood to hold onto. She left that long ago. She’s not some dinky little Dahlia looking soullessly at people and waiting for them to flinch. Nor was she a preteen arguing constantly with the one adult figure in her life that she never bothered to listen to anyways. 

God, that was sick of me, wasn’t it? To want to fuck my childhood friend, to want to rape her, break her bones, see her dead and bloody on the side of a road, to want to watch her suffer. But then I looked for a remnant of my old self. I waited for the guilt. And it never came. There was nothing left. All of it was burned out of me. And all that was left, was the thought: “good.” 

She made me. And as much as I can see past it, I can’t quite fight that hatred she gave me. For good reason, I mean, look what she did to me. I can’t really tell anywhere where that programming ends, and the free will begins. If there is even such a thing as free will. 

These claws were good at digging into bark and wood, it seemed. I could make holes in the trunks of these old trees with a little workaround. I was built into a perfect monster. People would see me, and only ever see a creature. Something pure evil and wrong. I wondered it would feel like to have these things wrapped around her neck. Would the bitch like something like that? Or would she piss her pants? Did she love me too? Did she ever love anything at all? 

She needed to love me. She had to. 

These claws were heavy. I drew them back, looked them over, and wondered what they were meant to accomplish. I suppose I was meant to be a dominator. I knew from the beginning just how little power she had over me, when she couldn’t bring me back from her initial mistakes that weren’t mistakes. When she made me dark and couldn’t turn back the clock, that was her own doing. She couldn’t control me even I was good, so I guess now I had the freedom to do what I wanted to her now. That was fair. A good trade off for becoming a monster. 

I knew that when I lay over her and confronted her, knowing full well what she would say in response, she wouldn’t be able to stop me. 

“Shut up,” I told her, because she never stopped talking about things that didn’t matter. Her throat was so tiny in my hands. So warm, hot. Just a little tighter, just a little more, and I could make it stop. I wondered what killing an Editor could do. Could I truly destroy her? What would happen? Would we all disappear? Maybe that’s what I wanted to happen. Maybe I was better off not existing. 

Ha. No. I wanted to see her suffer. She needed to be alive for that. 

She was so scared. Tearful eyes staring up at me, made prettier over the years for her own entertainment. I always saw past it. Saw past the façade of a human she’d grown to wear as a mask. She was so much more than that. Everything about her, everything that she was, all of the pain and suffering and creation and hatred and love… It was everything I wasn’t. I hated that. 

“Do you know what the worst part is?” I asked her. She couldn’t answer. She was quiet. I appreciated that. “I still love you.” Admitting you had a problem was the first step on the road to recovery. “More than anything. So much…” Tightening my grip on her neck was so soothing, it made it so much easier to admit things. “God, it hurts. It hurts more than any hatred, than any sting from some stupid civilization you made up. It hurts because I hate you, too.” At that, her eyes widened. As if it was some kind of stupid revelation. Like it wasn’t obvious, all this time. She must not have even noticed it, but I did. Who did she think she was? Who did she think she was fooling? I wanted to slap her. I wanted to kill her. I wanted to fuck her. I wanted so many things all jumbled together. She made my brain hurt. 

“As much as I love you… I want to kill you right now. I want to snap your little neck, and watch that light die from your eyes.” Maybe she got off on this. Maybe I was falling into another one of her traps. Maybe I wanted that. 

“And I want to be with you forever.” I did. She lay under me, this pitiful shivering thing, so much smaller than me, so much less intelligent, so much more selfish, so much worse, so lacking, so useless. And I wanted to stay by her side. To breathe over her shoulder for the rest of her life and watch her fail at every possible opportunity. It was funny. If she’d made this all up, then it was a cruel joke. I had to laugh. “Do you understand my dilemma here, little thing?” I asked her, tightening my grip just in case she tried to answer. I couldn’t stand her squeaky little voice. It made me want to rip out her throat. But she was funny. She looked like a bobble head with those blown out eyes. “Darkheart? Do you understand? Huh? Do you? You wanted to be the devil, right?” 

I could make her mine. 

I could make her evil. 

I could make her hurt. 

I could make her my everything. 

She wanted to scream when I showed her what I was capable of becoming. Her eyes were as bulged as ever, her throat twitching and flinching from under my claws. But as terrified as she was, she deserved it. She made this. I was another thing of hers. Just because she didn’t make me directly didn’t mean she didn’t have a hand in it, and she deserved to know what she had done. She had to see the thing that I nearly flinched away from in the stream. The very concept of nonexistence. “You want this, don’t you?” I asked. It was difficult to speak with a mouth, but it elicited this delicious, squirming reaction from her, just filled with fear and horror. “Something evil. Something twisted. That’s what gets you going, right?” 

I hated her so much. I hated her, I wanted her dead, and I wanted to see what she looked like when she was aroused. I couldn’t seem to control my own hands, my own body, my own needs. She flinched at every touch, her breath hitched, and it spurred me onwards. I didn’t understand. I wished I could just pick something and stick with it. Preferably the version that just wanted her dead. 

“I hate you,” I muttered, looking at the way she reacted. “And I want you for myself. Do you understand?” She couldn’t have. And I didn’t either. She must have been asking herself why I didn’t just pick something and stick with it. Annoying, she might have said, and then looked at me with those selfish eyes that begged to be taken down a peg. 

She closed her eyes. This had to stop. It had gone on far enough. I was tired of playing nice. I was tired of teasing. That’s all she had done this whole time. Tease. Cry. Ask for more. Take what wasn’t hers. 

Even I could feel the world screaming behind us. The twisting and churning in reaction to the touching of it’s poor God. What I was doing was wrong. She didn’t want it. And I grinned. That shut the whole world up. Because, you see, I could make it bow before me. I had its creator in my claws, holding the entirety of existence hostage. And it cowered. It practically begged for a master. 

I moved her. She pleaded. She cried. She asked me to stop. She swore when I pulled off her clothes, I laughed at her prissy little self, just how pale and boring she was under those things she used to hide herself off from the world. I showed her what it meant to be an adult, and when she realized there was more to my body than she had initially created, she settled into flinching whimpers and accepted that her self hatred could take her even this far. 

She could have stopped this all, you see. She could have chosen to make me stop existing. She could have fixed me. But she didn’t. I was still there, still fucking her into a bloody mess and pressing my face against her cheek, treasuring that strange sensation I hadn’t known how much I truly wanted until now. She shivered, and I wanted to hold her close. I finished inside her and she must have felt it. I wondered if she had finished too. I wondered why I cared. Why I slowed my hips, why I tried to use my own claws scoop up a breast and feel it between them, make her react.

She whispered she was sorry over and over, saying it under her breath, between the sobs that kept wracking her body against my own movements. 

I kissed her to shut her up. I made her feel my unhinged jaw. I made her look into my eyes. I made her see what she had done to me. I made her look at me. 

I made her see me. 

She had to see me. 

She couldn’t turn away from me. 

She could at least do me the service of seeing what she had done to me. 

“You didn’t have to do that,” she whispered when we were done. “You didn’t have to.” 

Such a sweet little voice. So terrified. So broken down. So lifeless. 

“I didn’t,” I agreed. “But I wanted to.” 

Darkheart. 

I felt her chest. That warm, evil, squirming heart. No one would ever see the selfishness inside it. She made herself exactly what she wanted the world to see. Some little spitfire of a girl, something bright and vibrant as the color that seeped from her eyes. 

“It hurts,” she muttered. I waved the color away. She didn’t even notice. 

“You have no idea.” 

It did. Desperately. I ached. Because it wasn’t enough. I could feel her, hold her, break her, and it wasn’t enough. My shoulders were still tense, my body still coiled, and everything about me retched in greed. 

“Darkheart. I want your power.” 

“What?” 

“Give it to me. All of it.” That wasn’t right. I wanted her. Everything about her. I wanted to seep inside her skin and live there. I wanted to feel her insides again, the warmth I didn’t have. I wanted to jam my fist through her body and feel that evil, twisted heart. Pull it out and see if it was as dark as it acted. Her face was so scared when I pulled it to mine. She looked at me. She truly looked at me. I made her look. I made her see me. She didn’t flinch. And it made me wonder. Did she love me? Did she care for me as much as I cared for her? Did she feel the same burning desire I couldn’t quench inside me? 

“I don’t know how,” was all that she could manage.

“Then give me yourself.” But that wasn’t enough. 

“I’ve already done that.” That’s not what I meant, you stupid girl. You little cunt, you have no idea how much I yearn for you. Please. Read my damn mind. I wish I could. I wanted you to. Why did you make me apart from you?

“No. In every way.” I held her hand. She shivered at the contact. At everything I did. Terrified. I loved it. I loved her. “I love you. I love you. I love you, E.” 

She cried. “Stop it.”

“I love you more than anything, E.” 

“Stop. Please. Stop saying that. Please.”

But it was true. It was. I loved her. I hated it with every fibre of me being. Did she make this too? Was this another form of torture? For the both of us? I couldn’t tell anymore. What did she choose to make? What did she inadvertently mess up? How much of this was some sick fantasy of hers? How much of this was my own free will? “That’s your fault too, Darkheart.”

“I’m sorry.” So much sorry. There would be time for that. More than enough time. Because I was going to shackle myself, if my life depended on it. We belonged together. I had to be here, by her side, to destroy her, to break her to pieces, to keep her as mine. 

I kissed her cheek. “Years and years.” So much time. 

I didn’t sleep. She did. I could feel her body, the way it moved in and out, slowly. So much different than when she was afraid. I pressed a claw to her chest, and felt the rise and fall of it. There were lungs in there. Beneath the rib-cage, right around her heart, those two lungs taking in air. If I pushed a claw through her skin, between the bones of that cage, poked out even one of them… 

I pressed a kiss to the top of her head. 

When she dressed, I watched her. She didn’t bother trying to hide. She knew I’d follow. She didn’t try to leave either. Maybe she didn’t feel like she could. That self hatred and guilt really did wonders on her will power. It made me curious. 

“I want your powers,” I said. 

“No.” 

“Give them to me.” She looked me in the eye again. My heart lept.

“Why?” 

“So you can’t escape me.” 

“After what you did…” She lowered her eyes. I wondered what was going on inside her head. What kind of cacophony filled that mind? The confusion, the shrapnel of information, the whirling that had nearly broken this world apart. I’d torn a hole in her mind. She was still working to patch it up. Right now, all she could do was give me a hollow look I’d only ever heard about in stories from Pyrim. It made me want to laugh. What kind of bitch thought that she would get pity from me after what she did to me? “I can’t even think.” 

Of course she couldn’t. I’d ruined her. Look at her. A trembling, nervous body, newly changed and broken, in a world that relied on her own stability in order to function. It was too easy to destroy everything she cared about. What a delicate, problematic little flower. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked her. I wonder if she heard the smirk. 

“Why are you acting like you care? I don’t… I don’t even understand.” 

“What’s there to understand?” I laughed. “I love you.” 

“Stop saying that! People don’t… They don’t do that when they love each other.” She gathered her hair together in her hands, and pulled until it hurt. Her eyes kept twitching, along with her lips. There were tears again. How cute. “That wasn’t… I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t even… I couldn’t even say no.” 

“Why?” I already knew the answer, but it was fun to tease her.

“I don’t know!” 

“Because you love me?” I edged closer, noticing the way she shuffled back. That fear bloomed again. I didn’t think I could ever get tired of that. It was just as beautiful as that cruel heart of hers. I think I was in love with that. With everything. I wanted to wear her skin. “Do you love me, E?” 

She couldn’t even speak. Her mouth trembled too much. 

“Is this the dance you want?” I asked. I reached for her hand bunched with her hair, took it in mine, and held it close. 

“I wanted us to be friends,” she gulped. “I wanted us to go on adventures. I wanted you… I wanted you to care about me.” 

“And I do.” My eye twitched. Because it was true. Unfortunately. 

“Friends don’t do that.” 

“We aren’t friends. I hate you with every fibre of my being.” There was one thing about my body I did like. It was easy to reach her level. The entirety of my neck moved on its down, down like a snake until my eyes were right up against hers. I didn’t know what was inside me, but it wasn’t bone. I wasn’t certain if I had a heart. Organs. Bones. But that didn’t matter anymore. Days of thinking of stupid shit like that while waiting for E to need me, they were long gone. I didn’t have to play those games anymore. I had her to play with. To destroy. And I could see that look in her eyes again. That desperation. What were you looking for Darkheart, brightness? Whiteness? Life? Goodness? You did an excellent job, tearing that out of me. I had to congratulate you for that. 

“Then why do you keep saying you love me?” She cried. 

“I promise you, I hate it as much as you do.” I narrowed my eyes, grabbing her arm and feeling her twinges away from me. She was not to falter. I wouldn’t let her. “But you made me this. You could change me if you wanted. Just try it. Go ahead. Try and change me. Do it.” 

“I can’t!” 

“Fix me, E.” She gasped for air, even though I’d long since stopped holding her throat. But it did leave a lovely bruise. I wondered what she would look like with a collar. Subjugated. Living only to see her world crumble down. She was so afraid. I kept my face level with her, and she struggled to form words together. Long gone were the times that she pretended my body didn’t scare her. She was just like all the others. Good. 

“I can’t fix you. I can’t even do anything around you. I couldn’t leave. I couldn’t change you. I wanted to… I was going to try, I promise I was.” Lies. Those were pretty lies, that even she didn’t believe. There was nothing to wait for. Her self hatred was consuming her, and it would never end. My hands twitched. She deserved to have her tongue out. “I was talking with Remmy,” she stuttered. “With Pyrim. We were going to try. I was going to change. I just… if you had just given me time.” 

“I don’t want to go back. Don’t get me wrong,” I laughed. I pulled back, and forced her ahead of me. Might as well go back to walking. There was nothing of any use here. “I don’t think I’d ever want to be a mindless drone ever again. It’s no fun just agreeing with whatever you say. It felt like sand on my tongue, whenever I said yes to you, you know that? Even thinking about it makes me want to blow my brains out. It was painful, not having the choice to tear you limb from limb.” 

“If you wanted to die,” she muttered. “Then why didn’t you?” 

“Who else would take your colors away? Or destroy you? And I fully intend to destroy you, Darkheart.” I directed her to those old, obnoxiously large trunks that gave way to the clearing, and that stupid big granny of tree that she’d made on a whim. Far above us, I could feel that glare of that owl that never shut up. Right now, though, it was silent. The world was mute. As it should be. It must have known the mistake that she had made. What she had created. I’d never felt more alive, knowing the world stood silent for me. “All of this bullshit you’ve made, these things with little to no meaning, I want to see it broken before your very eyes. I want to see you cry, and scream.” My eyes gleamed. “I want to see your world fail.”

“What’s wrong with you?” 

“What’s wrong with you?” I echoed. I tightened my grip on her shoulders. “It’s not my fault, Darkheart. It’s yours.” 

“I didn’t make you into this! You said you had the choice now – you could choose to end this!” 

“It doesn’t matter anymore, this chicken and egg argument you never shut up about. You made this, unconsciously or not. And now you get to pay the price.” 

Her crying was getting tiresome. Whenever she didn’t have anything to add, she’d just cry. When she was too confused, when she couldn’t blame her problems on anyone else anymore, she’d cry. My hands itched. Half the time, I wanted to tear off her head from its thin shoulders. But then part of me wanted to pull her against me, hold her close, and listen to her sobs subside.

I pulled her into my arms, and rested against a tree. 

“What are you doing?” She looked up at me, face contorted and red, arms shaking, not bothering to struggle. Anyone would be confused. I was confused.

“I’m getting sick of your tears.” 

I didn’t understand either, Darkheart.

She slowly lowered her head, those haunted eyes taking in my form, not seeming to understand just how warped I had become. Her fingers traced around my impossibly thin waist, up to the chest. The shoulders overly pointed, the cartoonishly long arms. The utter darkness of the skin, whose texture was indeterminable. I was a monster, Darkheart. Yes, you should know that. Everything you touched was monstrous. There was nothing left to look for. No goodness. You did this to me. Thank you, for freeing me from this disgusting world that made me agree to you. But at the expense of sacrificing what humanity I had left within me. Was it ever human? Did you ever consider me human? 

“What are you doing?” I muttered. 

She was silent. She looked up, and my eye twitched. Where had the fear gone? She was so hollow. Her hands still trembled, but those eyes… I’d broken something inside her, I thought. I had to, for her to stop crying. To want to touch me. To not be afraid. 

I dropped my head when she reached up to stoke it. My entire body was tensed. She drew a fingertip along the edge of my jaw. Her arm trembled. I couldn’t look away from her. My claws found their way around her waist again. I wanted to squeeze. I wanted to break. I wanted her again. 

Her eyes dropped down to them. Her eyebrows furrowed. So desperately sad. So guilty. So broken. But she accepted them. She drew a hand along them as my claws tightened, breathed out slowly, and new tears began to form. Different tears. 

“I’m sorry,” she muttered.

“No you’re not.” 

“But I am. I really am.” 

“Don’t say you’re sorry. Show it.” My neck fell lower to catch her. “Love me.”

She bit her lip. Afraid again. But nervous. Not the same. She didn’t look me in the eye. She was trying to mouth something. Trying to say something. I strained to hear it. 

“E?” 

My eye twitched again. 

I rose up to my full height at the sound of the cat’s voice, and E’s face contorted once again in fear. 

Pyrim stood at between us and that old tree, just at the edge of that clearing, his entire body arched as his fur rose on end. Those green eyes were wide as he saw me. 

My jaw unhinged in a grin, and the cat visibly swallowed. 

“E, get away from that… Thing. It’s… It’s corrupted.” 

“I can’t,” she muttered.

“What do you mean, you can’t? Just… Imagine yourself next to me. Blink to me. That thing is wrong, E. Please.” 

“I know.” 

“Why aren’t you moving? How did I get here? Didn’t you bring me to help?”

“I didn’t send for you.” 

“Then how… How did I get here?” He was moving from paw to paw. Too afraid to get close. Good. I stretched down to place a kiss against her shoulder, then press my head up against the girl’s trembling neck. She was embarrassed. Of course she would be. And it was delicious. 

“I gave you what you wanted,” she tried to keep her head held high. It was so pitiful. 

“What did you give him?” I muttered by her ear. My claws clenched tighter. There’s be more bruises on her, to add to the others already. “What did you give to him, and not to me?” That jealousy blooming inside me, I hated that. I shouldn’t have needed her. I shouldn’t have wanted her. All of this darkness, and I’d never felt more chained to this stupid little girl. 

“He’s my assistant.” She winced. Her voice was so quiet, as if lowering it would keep me from hearing her betrayal. “So I gave him the ability to find me. He can go where he likes. That’s all.”

“You gave him some of your power,” I mused. 

“I gave him what I should have long ago.” 

“Then give it to me too.” 

“I can’t.” 

“You will.” 

“I can’t! It’s not for you! And I didn’t – I didn’t think I’d ever need to give it to him! I just…” This was desperation. She was realizing her position. She’d gotten her arms cut off. She was realizing just how deep the hole was that she’d dug ages and ages ago. She wouldn’t be able to escape. So she was sending out feelers. Giving away pieces of herself stronger than before, in hopes that they would be able to… To what. To save her? Did she really think giving Pyrim the power to travel where he liked would somehow break us apart? And to give it to him, and not to me? 

“E,” Pyrim whimpered. “What happened? What did he do to you? You didn’t have to… There’s…” A lost little kitten. “You can still move!” 

“You and I are trapped together, E,” I muttered against her ear. My entire body curled around her. I could feel the warmth of skin that shivered in an imaginary breeze. “You’re accomplishing nothing with this. We’ll always be entangled. You know that, right, Darkheart?” 

The intimate scene was too much for the cat. He couldn’t comprehend two lovers entangled together like this. The possessiveness of each other, coveting our bodies and waiting for him to leave to do as lovers do again. 

I cracked myself up sometimes, I swear. What an imagined thought. I just wanted to see how much further I could delve. What else I could squeeze out of her. That itching in my claws. To squeeze. To spear. To hold. To caress. 

“Fine,” she whimpered, and pressed her face into my chest. “Fine, but just stop it. You’re hurting me.”

“Good.” 

“E…” 

“Oh, shut up cat,” I snapped. “Can’t you see what’s going on here? E is mine. Nothing that she does is going to change that. You’re supposed to be her caretaker, right? How much have you actually been paying attention to? Do you spend all your time talking with her about the morality of omnipotence? Or do you see what you have in front of your own eyes?” I pulled her closer. “She’s a lost cause. A psychopath given empathy. Nothing more. She’s only ever going to punish herself. And this is no different. She can shower you with gifts,” that she wouldn’t shower me, “but she’ll never be able to leave me. Because you are her caretaker. And I am her warden.” 

“This is sick,” the cat had the audacity to hiss.

“Isn’t it though?” I laughed. “Did you know I raped her?”

If a kitten could look murderous, Pyrim tried his hardest. But he knew when he was helpless. His own paws buckled. He couldn’t bring himself to go closer. The power to travel was still no Editor. I wondered just how much he was willing himself to tear me in two. He was going to have an aneurysm if he kept it up. 

“E,” the cat whimpered. “Please.” 

“I can’t,” she sobbed. She clung to me. Actually clung to me. She held on, in this desperate act of looking for empathy, remorse, respite, who knew at this point. She was a jumble. Entangled in so many threads that I didn’t bother to try and understand. 

“This is the beginning of a new era, cat,” I said, and raised my head up to smirk at him with those light eyes I’d grown to enjoy. “And you are not a part of it.” 

“E, please-“ 

“Go,” E ordered. “Go. Please.” 

“So embarrassed,” I chuckled. “Did you not want me to tell him what I did to you?” 

“Shut up.” There was no force behind it. My unhinged mouth curled. 

“Don’t tell me to shut up, Darkheart, or I’ll be the one making you shut up.” I turned back to see the cat, only to note with satisfaction that he had disappeared. Putting those new powers of his to good use. I’d hope not to see him again. If he valued his life, he’d never show his miserable face. 

“I was going to tell him that I had loved you,” I muttered back to her. “That I’d broken you down. That I’d made you mine. Just the truth, right?” She said nothing. My eye twitched again. “Is that the truth, Darkheart? Have I broken you down? Have I made you mine? Tell me, dear thing. I want to know.” 

She was silent. 

“Tell me you love me.” 

Abhorrently silent. 

“Tell me you’d sacrifice everything for me.” 

I hated the silence. 

“Tell me, Darkheart.” 

“I love you,” she muttered. 

“Good,” I said. 

I held her close.


	7. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Muse for this chapter: Circles by Gumi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7t5JbAue6eY and Human by Christina Perri https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XX9E2xuc7nU

E

“Did you know the world is ending?” A grasshopper sang on the side of the road.

“Did you know the world is ending?’ A mouse chirped through the tall grass that blew in the breeze.

I kept walking. I couldn’t afford to stop. 

“What are you thinking?” He asked me. 

I kicked at a stone. It went into a puddle, mixing with mud and making frogs leap out of the eddies. The tracks of carriages made the deep gouges perfect for their spawn. 

“I’m thinking that I hate this world.” 

“Do you really?” He asked, with the greatest dose of sarcasm. A hand laced itself around my shoulder. After tensing for long from a touch like that, I could feel myself melting away. There was no point in fighting it, I kept telling myself. There was no way I could fight something like him, I’d think. No way I should. Perhaps he was right, perhaps he was my warden. Perhaps I was meant to be chained. 

Some small part of me wasn’t sure it agreed. 

“I hate what it means.” 

“Bankrupt creativity?” He suggested. 

“Maybe.” I took his hand, and pushed it away, walking a few steps forward before he fell in time with me. For just a second, he wasn’t beside me, encroaching down upon me, making me take him in his full glory of non-existence. 

And then his shadow was in the way again. 

“Did you know that the world is ending?” A hawk screeched from overhead. “Did you know that the world is ending?” 

Okay, I’d fucked up badly. I’d done something terrible. I’d no ability to fix it. 

So sue me. 

I was getting tired of making dragons. I wasn’t killing existence, they cried over nothing. And I never allowed animals to speak. Things were leaking through the cracks that shouldn’t be. Voices in my head, around me, through me, telling me things I already knew. That I didn’t need to hear. That just downright weren’t true. My powers were working against my own consciousness and I couldn’t control them. 

He caught up to me. Laid his hands around my shoulders again, and squeezed. I couldn’t forget that he was still there, that cold thing perched on my shoulder that I didn’t understand in the slightest. 

“Have you thought of a name yet?” He asked me. 

“I don’t want to.” His voice was still too painful on my head. As much as he tore the color away, he brought his own headaches. And nightmares. Chills in the middle of sleeping, only to wake up with a pair of black, uncanny long claws around oneself. Sometimes I forgot that I didn’t want to cry anymore. 

“Selfish,” he spat.

I gripped his hand tightly in my own, and resisted throwing it away again. It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter. 

I couldn’t break down today. 

“I’m sorry.” I shivered, and so did the world. It wanted to stay with me. It begged like a loyal dog, like many of the creations I made. It didn’t want to be destroyed. It was an abused child flinching the moment a parent’s hand was held in the air in preparation to slap. And he, the creature, knew that. And he loved that. Because it meant that if he controlled me, he controlled the world. 

“You don’t sound sorry.” I didn’t know exactly what he wanted. Half the time, he contradicted himself. A word of love was held with equal measure up to a world of utter rage and hatred. It was almost as if we worked in tandem together. My mind inherently contradictory, working with an inherently contradictory voice. How much did my power control me? How much of it worked behind the scenes, without my knowledge, leaking into everything I touched? Did conveniences still exist, or was I still molding him into something at a subconscious level? I was afraid of that answer, both for what it meant for me, and how he might react. 

Insane. I really was going crazy. My mind was in shambles.

“I am. I mean it.” And he loved me. I know he loved me. That was the worst part. After all this hatred and pain, he loved me. And I couldn’t help but think that I loved him too. 

“I don’t think I deserve to name you,” I said. “Is it really my place?” 

I looked up to those terrifying eyes that filled my heart with something I couldn’t understand. They narrowed, then looked ahead to the village that lay so many miles in the distance. In the clear day it was easy to see, as far as it was. Not a cloud in the bright blue sky.

“I’m not the Editor, here. You are. I expect you to do your job.” His voice was filled with sarcasm and spite. He was taunting me. 

“But you want the ability to choose, don’t you?” I tried to take a step forward, but his claws kept me in place. They tightened, and I closed my eyes. “That’s what you said you wanted. I’m trying to do what you want.” Was that for the best? What did he want? What did I want?

“I want to break this world. And you.” 

I held my breath to keep from screaming. “You’re getting what you want.” 

“You want to run away.” 

“I don’t.” I did.

“You said you hated this world. Really, you just don’t want a memory of what we did here, do you? Do you think that throwing your building blocks to the floor like a petulant child will get rid of me?” 

Yes. 

“No,” I muttered. I looked down to see how the frogs had gathered around me. They blinked up at me with mucous filled eyes and waited expectantly for something to happen. Even now, the world seemed to tenderly wrap around me. Everything wanted to console me, from the plant life, to the cat that I had to send halfway across the world. I wanted something to happen too, little frogs. I wished something would too. I wished I knew how these stupid powers worked. I wished I knew how to be a good person. 

“How deep do we go, Darkheart?” He guided me down the road. “How deep are those gouges that we had to fill in together?” 

“Deep,” I answered. I could feel the shivers going up my spine. 

“For how deep those gouges go, you should know that nothing you do would ever get rid of me. We are one and the same, Darkheart. You made me into this, never forget that.” 

I’d never expected him to feel this cold all the time. Now that he touched me, he never ceased to feel like the chill of a door letting in the winter air. Everything about him was that same icicle caress. I thought I would hate it. It’s not something that’s supposed to feel good. I could remember, so very long ago, the talks I had about strangers, about people that hurt you. You were supposed to tell an adult, to not accept anything from them, to avoid them, to talk about it. Always tell a teacher if a man across the playground asked you to follow them into the car. You shouldn’t touch Miranda without her saying so, even if no one on the playground let you have the hugs that they all got. Even if you looked strange. That touch was important. You couldn’t take it. It had to be given. I knew what that meant now. I always had all the answers to the multiple choice questions the teachers would give us. But I didn’t realize how important a touch could be, nor what it could do to a person that didn’t ask. 

This was different, though, wasn’t it? This touch wasn’t unpleasant. He was more terrifying than I could have been to Miranda. But wasn’t it supposed to hurt, what the men did with you in the proverbial white van labelled free candy? Wasn’t he supposed to be the bad guy? What adult was I supposed to go to now to tell that the man wouldn’t stop following me and had done inappropriate things? And how was I supposed to tell them that I didn’t like it, when it was so obviously a lie? 

No matter who or what I made, he always seemed so much stronger.

“I won’t forget. I… I don’t think I could if I tried.”

“Good.” His voice darkened in spite. 

I knew, my friend. I knew. 

I’m sorry.

“No matter what you do, I won’t leave you,” he added after a second thought. 

“I know.” 

“Not even if you wish it.” 

“I know.”

“And giving your stupid dolt of a cat super powers won’t do anything either, you know that?” 

I’d given the creature what he wanted ages ago, just as I’d given Pyrim. It was the perfect way for him to keep tabs on me. But the fact that I’d given the cat the gift of travel first, no matter how subconsciously it might have been, that mattered most. He would never let me forget that. 

“I know.” 

“And where is Remmy these days, anyways? Where’s he gone off to?” His eyes peered down closer to me. 

“I don’t know.” I didn’t want to know.

“Surely you must. You know everything, at all times, whatever happens to your little creations. Where is he, Darkheart?” 

“Far.” I couldn’t look the cat in the eye anymore. I could barely even think about him. I couldn’t help but remember the moment I’d last met him face to face. I couldn’t get that disappointment out of my head. He’d seen what the creature had done to me. What I was capable of becoming. How could I call myself an Editor? My childhood toy and greatest friend had watched me give myself over to the thing that bumped in the night, and I couldn’t even run to him. I’d just stood there, until he disappeared, and the monster had his way. What a let down I was. “He’s in the void.” Truthfully, I didn’t think hard enough to know exactly. He could be wherever he wanted. He deserved to get away. We spent too much time together, the three of us. He needed to find people. Others. That wouldn’t hurt him. 

That weren’t me. 

“I want to see him again. I bet I could make him squeal. The little pest deserves it.” 

“You have me.” 

“I would never touch another being other than you, Darkheart. I simply want to crush that vermin.” 

My teeth were grinding harder and harder. 

The creature was a petulant child prone to bouts of anger and sensitivity. He liked to pretend he wasn’t. I even loved him for it, because that coldness almost seemed to melt away when he acted like a person. But he was still a child. And I supposed we both were. But he was the kind of beast that liked to focus on things that didn’t seem to make any sense, that watched them like they would move and connect and change if he stared at them long enough. Then they would bend his way and he’d be satisfied, no matter how unlikely they were.

“The Seventeenth.” 

“Hm?” He tilted his head down to meet with mine, and made me look at him. 

“You’re the Seventeenth.” 

“That isn’t much of a name.” He tilted his head to the side, and I could feel that manic smile. 

It’s more than you deserve, I wanted to say. 

It made sense. A number that seemed to appear again and again. I could still remember the first time I had heard it so long ago, when Jennifer first talked about the woman that had given her humanity. That was the reason she was in that bubble right now, living happily in a world I’d retconned to be exactly how she hoped it would be. This creature was a bastardization of the concept. He was no high school sweetheart. No kindness of true love and humanity. Even the thought of him sent chills down my spine. He’d taken everything away from me and left me struggling for an answer. 

It was the year he was made. The day. The hour. The second. The thought in my head of what I knew would come next. 

“Seventeen. It haunts me. Like you.” 

“I don’t like it,” he finally said. 

“I’m sorry.” 

“No. I wouldn’t have liked anything you gave me. But this is better than nothing. A number will surely strike fear into the hearts of any looking for a real character out of me, right?” He laughed to himself. Softly. Coldly. “Marks me as wrong, little better than a placeholder. And I know how much you like wrong things.” He pressed a finger to my chin. I gulped, and closed my eyes. “No matter how much you might think that destroying everything else might destroy me too.” 

I was so very tired of crying these days. 

“I wanted to destroy this world for the sake of building something better, not because I was trying to get rid of the thought of you. That would be stupid. I know you can’t leave.” I tried to make each word sound true. 

“I don’t care,” he finally responded, after looking in my eyes for some kind of trick. “Regardless of the things you make, I’ll find a way to make all of them come crashing down.” He paused, a raised another hand to my eyes. I flinched away out of reflex. “Still yourself,” he murmured comfortingly. “It’s just the color in your eyes.” 

I slowly relaxed against him. 

His hands moved slowly over my eyes. The soft, gentle touches of someone that knew me intimately made my heart slow, my mouth go slack, and my shoulders sag. Any pain I might have had dissipated within his lack of existence. I breathed out the tension I hadn’t known I’d been gathering. If I just let go of all of my earthly wants and needs, I could fall into his darkness and let the chill envelop me in an eternal lack of desire. 

Safety. 

Submission, he said by moving his hand to my neck and clamping down.

“What kind of world would you want to make?” He asked me. 

“The opposite of this. Whatever this is.” I kicked at another stone. I didn’t want this. Any of this. 

God, I was such a fool. 

“You’re a fool to want something like that,” he said. 

Every time I opened my mouth, he would be there to finish a sentence. It was almost annoying, if it wasn’t so terrifying. How much he truly knew about me, I was astonished to realize. It was more than Pyrim. More than anyone. However he had learned of me, now he used it to his advantage. 

I hadn’t realized what torture could be until him. 

“Well, I want something else for the purposes of making something. I don’t learn anything new when I keep the same old world.” 

“It’s still a stupid idea. You know what you’re doing, right?” His eyes smirked in a way that lips never could. “You’re killing billions of living creatures for the sake of rebuilding anew. You’d be killing the world.” 

“I don’t know exactly what I want,” I said softly. “But I can’t keep this place. It drains and there’s nothing to it. Everything has already come to pass. There’s nothing left to watch happen. Everything that has just feels stale.”

“That sounds boring. I don’t really care.”

Aimlessly walking down this road, with no clear direction in mind, I found myself so easily coaxed into doing what he wanted. My mind leant itself to following him, wherever he wanted me to go. It was as if I were built for it. He would have loved that. To make me his obedient servant. I sometimes wondered if he wanted to be the God. But then he wouldn’t have me, and I had to be alive in order for him to torture me. 

“I know you don’t care,” I muttered, and kept walking down that road even if he did hold onto me. He still let me walk. “You don’t care about anything.” 

“Do I not?” 

“I don’t like talking with you.” 

“And yet you still bitch and complain.” 

I held my breath. “Alright, then.” 

“Alright what?” He asked. 

“I hear these same insults every day. I’m just going to do what I want. Talking solves nothing.”

He snorted. “I’m not stopping you.” 

“Good. Because I want to build. That’s what I’m supposed to do.” I tried to hold my head higher, as difficult as it was. “And I am not going to be stopped by… By something like you.”

“Is that an attempt at confidence I hear?” 

I deflated. “It’s an attempt at resignation.” I held out a hand in front of me, and the fields on either side of us began to crack in two. 

“You’re destroying the world,” he chuckled. His head fell in beside mine, to watch the destruction from my point of view. I continued walking with my hand raised, trying to ignore the strange chill against my nape, to focus all of my will on the thought of what I wanted. His voice was low, with the hint of a growl at the edge of it. I closed my eyes for a moment as I struggled to focus. 

“I know,” I said. 

“The cat wouldn’t like what you’re doing to the innocent people you’ve raised into human beings. Those are lives you’re destroying. Imagine the babies being born right now. The birthdays being celebrated. The weddings being held with two young people in the prime of their lives. They’ll never even be able to kiss the bride because you’re deciding to kill them all with nothing more than a thought. That’s all it takes when you’re a God. You got bored, Darkheart, so you decided to commit genocide. How lovely.” 

His eyes closed in glee when I looked to him. Those white steaks of light that dripped slowly from his eyes grew again when they opened, and he looked at me like I was some strange little insect. My hand closed slowly into a fist. I couldn’t help but do exactly as he said. Maybe he was right. But maybe I shouldn’t have continued to care. Maybe that’s what was holding me back. 

As I let the world crack in two, let the waves of the ocean flood the wheat fields, the townships fall into the chasms that faded deep into the molten core, I tried to look to the future instead of the past. 

I couldn’t seem to forget the people I walked alongside in the cities and towns. I couldn’t ignore the rich cultures, the smiling faces, the crying and joyful laughter in the streets. They were people. They truly were. And I had to reconcile with the fact that I was going to destroy all of them like they were nothing more than toys. 

The future. I had to look to the future. I couldn’t get hung up on the people that lived until I got bored. They shouldn’t have existed in the first place. This was the wrong world. And I made a mistake when I made them, a mistake that I would learn from and hopefully never make again. 

“Are you destroying the oceans too?” He asked me curiously. “The pirates? The old gods?” 

“I’m destroying everything,” I said. 

The world turned to ash. The cliffs shot up into the air on either side of the road, trembling apart to make way for the yawning crevices of the earth itself, splintering down the sides into dark and muddy pieces. In front of me, the frogs watched with rapt attention. Their chins expanded in ribbits as they watched their world end. They hopped closer to me with a flare of molten magma from one of the chasms. I walked the thin line of the carriage path, the muddy water steaming from the tectonic flow. Sparks flew in the fiery air. The low, deep creaking of stone fighting stone made the earth tremble in its echoes. Far off, I could imagine the screams of that little village I’d never go to. 

I saved Lori and her little pet. I saved the few dragons I cared about. Some ships. A few things I thought could work for the next world. They were safely away, in another little bubble, going through the same motions that they might do for the next year or more, until I was prepared to look again. But they were on an arc, while the world was devastated under their very noses. I wondered what a little snobbish princess in a castle might say to what I was doing to her kingdom. I wondered what another quick-witted animal sidekick might have to add to his entire family and species being ripped to shreds by the very fabric of existence that no longer wanted them to exist. What would those moral, upstanding characters I’d so meticulously hand-crafted have to say about a creator that only wanted to be entertained? They’d failed a battle they couldn’t win, and their entire world burned to the ground. 

Yes, I threw my building blocks to the ground and had a temper tantrum. The Seventeenth wouldn’t let me ignore that. 

But was there anything left I could do? After all, conflict breeds innovation. There would have been nothing left in a world that worked on a clockwork timer. I knew what was going to happen. I knew how it would end from the very beginning. This was boring. There was nothing left to do and I was sick of a hand around my neck. 

I was done with being guilty. I was tired, so tired of feeling like I had to be the monster. I was an Editor. This is what I was born to do. I had to be the arbiter, regardless of what others might say. And if there was a hope, any hope at all, that I could change something, do something better, fix something, then I was going to take it. 

I’m a fucking God, bitch. I shouldn’t have had to justify myself. And yet I still found myself standing on my own two feet and mumbling excuses as to why I was ending the world. 

“What do you want from me?” I asked him. 

“I’m not here to tell you what to make.” 

“But I know you want to say something. You keep looking at me. Do you want to rub this in my face some more?” 

“I’m busy basking in the glory of all those people you just killed. Where is the cat, can he see this?” 

Maybe I’d shove him in that same bubble. Now I knew I would never be able to see him again. It was better that way, I think. He needed to be his own person, his own character. I could give him a life, a world of his own. I already had inklings of thoughts in my mind. He could have his own little girl to protect. He shouldn’t have me. 

“He’s not here,” I said. 

“Do you feel anything?” He kept prodding. “Seeing all this destruction. Those sparks in your hair from the trauma you deem warranted to inflict upon the world. What do you feel from killing the entirety of existence?” 

I held in my breath. 

“Sad.” 

But I wasn’t. 

Not really. 

There was something wrong with me. I was scared. I suddenly didn’t feel a thing. I didn’t even know what to feel. The Seventeenth held me close, muttering by my ear, urging me onward towards a guilt that I didn’t even have. 

These were ants, weren’t they? They were just placeholders for my own enjoyment. They didn’t mean anything. The trees of the old forest burned to nothing half a continent away and I couldn’t bring myself to do more than hold my lip into a firm line and let it happen. Maybe it had finally happened. I’d edited away the guilt. 

But that stomach still churned. 

And so the world burned to nothing. When it was over, the frogs waited for me to take a step forward. One of them ribbited, hopped to the edge, and fell into the pit of magma and death. I didn’t know why. 

These people were so meaningless. 

“What are you going to do now?” He asked. 

“I made a world of nothing but placeholders and blank space, allowing them to do whatever they wanted with it.” I slowly lowered my hands, and closed my eyes. “I’m dumb. I thought it would give them free will. I thought it would be a sure-fire way to make something more enjoyable for the both of us. It made it easier on me. But all it did was make me not care what happened to them. It foisted responsibility on my subconscious. What I did work on, I worked on too closely. I knew what was going to happen to everyone, and it was meaningless.” There were many answers to the question of why. I was hoping, desperately hoping, that the one I strived for was the good one. That’s what I wanted to believe. That’s what I had to believe. If I was truly bored, if I truly didn’t care, then I was hopeless. “So I messed up.” I couldn’t be a psychopath. I had emotions, right? I had feelings. I had to. I must do. I wanted to. I cared about Pyrim. I cared about what I did to my friend. I felt terrible.

There had to be a justifiable reason. And there was one, one I couldn’t dare say out loud, nor even think of for too long. 

“What are you going to do instead, Darkheart?” He asked me. His presence grew slowly in the fire and the dark. Before long, he stood over me with those whit eyes and felt more congesting than every before. He was daring me. 

I had to find the willpower. I had to. These next months would be sink or swim. 

“Make a new world.” 

“And how long will that take?” 

“A long time.” 

“Months.”

“Years, maybe. But if it helps, if it makes me care, then it’s worth it.” I picked up a frog. It was hot from the sparks. Much longer, and him and his little friends would be boiled alive by the flames. And yet they just sat there, waiting for it to happen. The heat slowly grew over time, and all they could do was sit there and take it. 

“I don’t want to do this again,” I said. 

The Seventeenth purred by my ear. “But you will, won’t you? You’re a monster. A terrible, childish little monster.” 

“Aren’t you?” I looked back at him. 

“What?” 

“Aren’t you a childish monster?” 

His eyes narrowed. 

“I made you, didn’t I?” I continued. When his hand found its way home to my neck again, where it belonged, I simply closed my eyes, and let him do as he liked. It was almost comforting, that choking hold. It was a reminder of what I had done, and the mistakes I’d made.

I think I loved him, too. It’s why I fell back against him among the blood and gore of the broken, crying, dying world, held that frog against my chest, and let him hold me in his arms. It was true that I belonged to him. It had never felt more right to be stuck in his grip, held in his arms, feeling that chill so sweet against the heat of the outside world pouring in. 

Was I the bad guy? Absolutely. Was I a monster? I wasn’t sure. Was I meant to be his? I couldn’t tell you. I wasn’t sure of anything these days. With a world inside my head and my mind so askew, with it working against me for the purposes of my own destruction, I couldn’t even seem to trust my own thoughts. 

“The world is dying,” the frog croaked. 

“The world is already dead,” I said. 

“What was that?” asked the Seventeenth. 

“What?” I blinked. 

He couldn’t hear it. 

“What did you say?” he growled. 

“The world is already dead. It is, isn’t it?” I smiled in hesitation. He frowned, but reluctantly stroked my hair nonetheless. 

I sighed, held that frog tightly, and watched the world burn to the ground. 

When it was over, we stood on the precipice of an empty wasteland continent. 

“The world is dying,” came the same ribbit from the same frog. All of his friends were little more than boiled meat on the ground. They smelled of a fish boil. But my frog was safe. 

The Seventeenth surveyed the world around him as a warden is introduced to his newest jail. I watched closely, like a hawk, but I dipped my head whenever we caught each other’s eye. He couldn’t feel it when I tried to will him to stop existing, so I supposed I had that to my advantage. But it still didn’t work. There was not even a dent in the fabric of reality. And all it did was make me upset that I had nearly lost him. I had to get over myself. 

Alright.

So I had a creature I couldn’t get rid of, a subconscious actively fighting against me with the same powers I did, and a growing, overwhelming contradiction of love etched with self-hatred that not even I could ignore. Not to mention the overwhelming sense of submission I could never seem to leave alone. As much as I wished I could fight it, I could not deny the attraction that I knew my subconscious had something to do with. With all the power of a God, the world still managed to find way to be stacked against me. But I am an Editor. If I don’t have the willpower to wield that, then at the very least I’ll use what little creativity I have left.

With all the power of a God, there has to be a way to get out of this madness. Because I was once a little girl, a little girl with all the tact of a wrecking ball and sharp as a tac. Where did that go, I wonder? Did it leave with the melodrama of emotions that never seemed to leave me alone? Did it end when I began to rely on a creature that wanted to kill me and everything I stood for? 

My warden, my devil, my monster, my dear friend, whom I love with all of my heart. If this it to be war, then I will use everything I can to my advantage. There has to be a way to get out of this. There has to be a way to stop wading through the dark and much. 

Because you can’t hear me think, and this frog is still alive.


	8. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Muse: Hypnotized - Set it Off https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK_NQo70HBA and Panic Room - Au Ra https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0yDvd0V9wA

SEVENTEENTH 

I suppose I might have overstayed my welcome. It seemed so good for a moment. She was afraid of me. I was in love, and I got the benefits of seeing her go mad from the fear and confusing emotions that the two of us constantly rotated around. We were dancing planets, neither ever meeting and fully understanding the other as we rotated around the sphere of the human condition. 

I guess I went and broke it apart. Because when she looked up at me, with that face, that strong chin jutting out in stoic opposition, I realized there were the inklings of rebellion inside her. No matter how I followed her every move, constantly reminded her of her position in life, she was already building some kind of resistance to the infection I so desperately wanted to inflict upon her. I had to say, I hated it. She used to be so quiet when I said the things I wanted to say. But as she began to get inklings of the new world, the world she kept saying over and over again that she truly wanted, she began to actually ignore me. She built geography and ignored me. 

Maybe she’d listen when I put a hand around her neck, but I could see the aggression hiding in her eyes. 

She acted like she had a leg to stand on again, and I had to ask, where did bravado like this come from? Was I unaware of some kind of revelation that she had come across, leading her back to the futile idea that she could ever be happy? She knew she would never be satisfied. She knew where she was supposed belong in life. In front of me, so she’d forever have to watch her back. 

So why wouldn’t she just sit the fuck down and let me abuse her? She was so lovely when she was raped, when I whispered sweet nothings in her ear, when I spoke about the people she’d killed. She still let me do what I wanted to her. But that face. That dreaded face. I hated that face. She was holding it right in front of me how much she didn’t care about what she’d done to me.

I wanted to strangle her for that. It wasn’t even that she was on a high horse. It was that she had forgotten who I was. What she had done to me. Did she forget that she had made me? Did she cease to care about where I had come from, who I was? I was her problem. I was suffering. I was forever empty because she had made me the only tool for her comfort. This was all her fault and she was treating me like some kind of… Some kind of…

But fine. If she wanted to be a petulant child, let us be petulant children. She needed more breaking. She needed to learn. That’s how she always was, no matter how much she pretended to be an adult. She still cried out in protest when we fucked. She still begged for a moment’s peace of mind when she should be used to me by now. And she jutted her lip out, pushed my hand away, and spoke back to me. What a wild stallion that she was, roleplaying freedom. 

There was a war inside her head. I could feel it. I teased it out, slowly, piece by piece, to get her to come to terms with her situation. Make her see sense. Make her calm, and quiet, and terrified. But I could also see her trepidation, her mind boggling willpower, and her continuous stubbornness leading her further and further away from me. How could someone have so little strength to keep her head above water, and yet more than enough to keep herself from drowning entirely? 

Ah well, if this was to be a game of chess, then let it be one. It was more fun than the other option, anyways. 

I was sick of her today and her stupid stubbornness. So I ran away. I wondered if she was nervous. Worried, even. She wasn’t used to not having something behind her all the time. That color would come back to her soon enough and with it would be the growing pain that she had never bothered to get rid of on her own. She would hurt, and she would come back to me crying, and I would laugh and kiss her and take all the hurt away so I could replace it with my own. 

As I walked, the world formed around me. It was empty, nothing more than hills and forests that moved and breathed. No human on this poor earth made this place their home. It was still so bald after her temper tantrum. I chuckled. It felt good to have that affect on her, even if she still fought me on occasion. There was a kind of strength that came from controlling a God, a strength that I basked in at every opportunity. It was beautiful in a way. I could almost feel the grips of the puppet strings in my hands. Every little tug, and I could manipulate her in the direction that I wanted her to go. 

It was getting closer to a precipice. She would have to make a decision soon. I was determined to guide her hand all the way there. But for now I was in control. Even now, I knew where she would be. At the edge of the water, contemplating all the mess she’d made and looking through the wreckage for a few ships she could place on the coast line without them questioning a thing. Maybe she’d find a place for that little girl Queen. Or maybe she’d save her the misery of knowing her world was dying, and outright kill her after she’d come to the understanding that she was no longer living a worthy life. Most of the others were already gone. She was playing with puzzle pieces that she’d found in the bottom of her pocket after throwing out the rest of the set in the dumpster. 

It felt good to be king. 

But where was I going, you ask? And I know you ask, you voyeur, so curious about the state of a little girl and the things that I make her do. Well, I was bored, as I said. Sick of her. You know how it is. You do the same thing over and over again, and after a while it doesn’t matter how fun it is. It’s all the same. I was a creature of will now, as much as I could be. So I was on the search for the cat. 

He wasn’t in the void. Slamming open the door to the cottage, I could see immediately that it was apparent. Still I searched through the tiny house, tearing cushions apart and pulling drawers off their hinges. The building creaked as I slammed door after door, knocking over counters and breaking mirrors into pieces. But I could find hide nor hair of that little vermin that seemed to hide away from the both of us these days. 

Throwing a cabinet of glasses to other side of the kitchen, I wasn’t surprised to hear the sound of shattering cups. I made my way over anyways, and opened it. Surprised, I pulled out the one glass left unmarred by the heft. I paused, rolled it around in my claws, then let it drop and watched it disintegrate on the tiles. It was such a small noise compared to the initial throw. With a gleam in my eyes, I turned around to further decimate the quaint little cottage. 

Well, if he wasn’t here, then he was in the world when that tantrum went on, which meant he got to see the upset that E had caused. Well now that was delicious wasn’t it, dear reader? I could only imagine the things that he had thought as he watched her precious world go up in flames. Maybe he thought in his willful ignorance that I had been the sole cause. If he did, then he was incredibly stupid. And stubborn. He should have known better than anyone the villain that this world had was its God. I was simply pulling on the strings to ends that already existed. I was showing everyone the problem. And everyone saw it, shrugged their shoulders, and unanimously agreed that it was the little girl that was the good one in this story, and the monster that had held her hand was the evil one. It made me sick. I wasn’t the bad guy here. I’m not supposed to be the one you root against. It’s her. She’s the monster. She’s the psychopath. She killed her sister, for god’s sake. How do you defend something like that? 

She made me. She decided what I would do for her. To her. It was no accident that I became this way. She could have decided this darkness wouldn’t change me. Hell, she could have decided that I would have never gone dark in the first place. But she didn’t. And here we are. 

All this world ever seems to think about is bodily autonomy. It’s boring. I’m bored. So very bored. When is the show going to start? Is this what we’ve come to? Simple castles and simple dragons and simple Queen’s lost in simple towers? Where are the other characters? If she keeps killing them all off just because she can, then there’s not going to be much interest in a story like this. 

My precious Editor was so very underwhelming.

I waited for him to come. Lying splayed open on the torn up couch, I sipped at a cup of wine through a broken glass, crunching at the wreckage still in the bottom. Absently, I waved my claw against the carpet and watched how pulls could be created so easily. It was already looking less like the decadent embroidery the original was, and more like fluffy sheep’s wool. A mixture of all sorts of colors now muddled into nothing more than mud. 

When the door creaked open, I raised my glass. 

“The cat came back the very next day,” I laughed, and clutched the half empty bottle of wine that I’d left forlorn by the side of the couch. Filling the glass once more, I gulped it down again as it began to leak through cracks and fissures. My front was quickly becoming stained with some imagined white vintage. “Weren’t you supposed to die several times over? What’s up with that, anyways? What am I talking about? I don’t know references. I’m just a child.” 

“What are you doing here?” The cat’s voice was wary. He struggled to open the door all the way, and I laughed to myself. He could transport himself anywhere in the world with the magic of an Editor, and he couldn’t open doors because he didn’t have opposable thumbs.

“I’m bored. Your girl is a little bitch.” I took another drink. There was buzz in the back of my head, this wavering that I assumed must have been the telltale sign of alcohol affecting my system. I’d have to thank E later for this wonderful, wonderful ability. The beginnings of an alcoholic haze worked well with my plans to get as drunk as physically possible. Drunken sex. Now that was something I had to try. “I decided to leave her to do whatever the hell she’s doing. Geography or something. Sulking. Whatever. Did you see what she did to that wonderful ocean? The kingdom she was building? She brought it all down to nothing.” 

“I saw what I am sure was your machinations.” 

“My machinations?” I threw the broken glass against the wall and listened to it shatter. Instead, I grabbed the bottle itself that I’d brought to the side of the couch. My jaw unhinged further to accommodate that crunching down on the slim container. It burst open into wine and glass shards in my mouth and down my throat. I coughed over the side of the couch as some chunks fell from my mouth, but I swallowed the rest. It was satisfying. That burning intensified. “I control nothing. She controls the very concept of existence. She got bored. All this is her fault.” 

“You’re a mess, you monster.” 

My eyes gleamed in his direction. “I’m more curious about what you’ve been doing on your off time, now that you’ve been let go as a caretaker,” I slurred. “Being fired must have been a blow, wasn’t it? How did it feel to see me take your little girl and make her into a woman?” 

“I haven’t been let go. She’s avoiding me.” He carefully avoided the subject, like he always did. Like he was doing now, navigating the wreckage I’d made with his tiny paws, white and black. They paused, pursed themselves in front of him, and he looked up at me with his hair only slightly raised. His eyes flicked around the living room with his nose wrinkled in a disapproving snarl. He looked awfully confident for a tiny cat that had been keeping a berth of a whole room between us. His body was illuminated by the flickering light of the kitchen. I’d already punched out most of the others. “You’ve destroyed the void… for what reason, exactly?” 

“It reflects the political climate. It’s a real shitshow, I’m telling you. The poor economy.” There was another bottle in the kitchen. I could see it. If I just had the energy to get up, to go get it…

“You’re acting like a child.” 

“Your little charge is a child. She’s the one throwing the temper tantrums.” 

“I don’t know what you expected after what you did to her.”

“Oh shut up, Pyrim. Nobody likes you. Not even the author.” I got up from the couch and tried to reach my full height, only to have my head swim in multiple different directions. The alcohol was hitting my system surprisingly quickly. It was kind of fun. Less so to see multiple Pyrims at the same time.

The cat jumped out of the way and off to the other side of the room as I brushed passed the toppled arm chair to finally got that treasured bottle. I didn’t look at the label before I pushed the whole thing into my mouth. Crunching on that one went down more easily. I swallowed the rest of the broken glass as it went down my gullet, sharp knives tearing and pulling every which way. Painful in such a wonderful way. “You know why no one likes you?” I finished after eating the last of the wine bottle. “Because you whine. That’s all you do. You put our nose to the dirt and tell us how to act and how wrong everything is and you WHINE. Whiny whiny cat boy. You never give a solution. You just complain. That’s why you’re not human. Because the Editor doesn’t want to give gifts to someone that never ceases to whine.” 

“She gave me teleportation before you.” 

“Fuck you, Remmy.” 

“I would say that you’re the child in this situation, personally. You seem to enjoy breaking things for no specific goal or purpose. Including the Editor. And you’re here now, for no reason I can see off the top of my head. Drinking. Is this your attempt to seem more like an adult?” 

“Look how tall I am. What am I, eight feet? I’m an adult.” 

“You’re seven years old.”

I glared at him. He shifted from foot to foot, suddenly seeming to realize just what kind of thing he was now trapped in the house with. He had no idea what he was dealing with. The monster that I was. What I was capable of doing. 

“I don’t know why you act like there’s any validation to the things you say,” I muttered, glancing over my shoulder to see if there was another forlorn bottle left forgotten. Unfortunately not. “That girl is the evil one. She’s abused the shit out of you. She’d abused me. She’s done whatever she’s wanted. Killed countless people after building them up, just for her own self interest. We’re nothing more than cardboard cut outs for her to act her own childish stories. We’re only here because she still thinks she needs us.” I felt my own claws dig into my hands. If only she were here. If only I had something I could strangle. I just wanted to show her how I really felt. Just how much I cared about her. Enough to put her in an early grave. Snarling, I glared down at the stupid little cat. An idiot. A vermin. A sympathizer. “She doesn’t bother to fix herself. What point is there in defending that?” 

“Why are you here, creature?” 

“My name is the Seventeenth.” 

“That’s a stupid name. Why are you here?” He tilted his head to the side. I could see the way he shivered. He was still scared, no matter how self righteous and bored he pretended to be. 

“I was bored.” 

“You spent your days doing whatever you want to E. And yet here you are.” 

“I was looking for you.” 

“Why?” 

I narrowed my eyes. “Because I wanted to see your face.” I took a step forward, and watched the way his tail went between his legs. The hackles on the back of his neck rose. “I wanted to see your reaction to what I had become. I never got the chance, you see. You were so quick to run away, after you saw the way I kissed your precious little girl. You couldn’t seem to stand the sight of the way she moaned around my mouth, or the way she allowed herself to be touched by such a monster. I wanted the chance to see that of you, without something distracting you. I wanted you to react to what I have become. Can you see it now, cat?” 

His ear twitched, then the both of them swivelled forward as the hair on the back of his neck slowly fell back down. He cleared his throat, and raised his head to mine. 

“I see you.” 

“And?” I growled. 

“And what?” 

“And what do you think?” 

“I think you’re a monster. Is that what you want?” 

I rushed the stupid vermin until I was only inches away from his scrawny little face. Crouching on all fours like some kind of insect, my neck snaked forward bonelessly to meet his eyes. I knew I was scary. I knew I had to terrify him. It had the desired result. His mouth raised in a snarl out of reflex, his eyes wild. But he didn’t move. And a moment later, his mouth went back to normal. He forced himself to calm down. I almost admired his lack of self preservation. He puffed his chest out, like he wasn’t just a cat. There wasn’t anything to him.

“You’re not special,” I said. “You’re just a cat. A little fucking pet for a girl’s enjoyment. You don’t do anything. But I’m a monster. I could kill you if I wanted. E could bring you back, but you’d still be in pain the entire time. Do you know what my claws could do to you?” 

“I’ve been afraid of you from the moment of your conception. This is no different. You’ve gone down the route that everyone could see coming. You’re still the same lack of existence being that you’ve always been. I’m more afraid of the fact that your very existence goes against E’s own internal logic. You have no aura. You have no soul. You live on nothing. That’s all that scared me. This? This is just an act. And a sad one.” I could feel the muscles in my neck tensing. His voice was so annoying. “What have you left to do once you are no longer given purpose by the Editor? You’re no longer the annoyingly obedient child that went along with everything your God asked, and now you have too much free will to know what to do with.”

“She is NOT a god.” I hissed. “And you are a disappointment more than I could ever be.” 

“You feel disgusted with yourself for ever thinking the things you did around her, don’t you? That she was your everything. That she was all goodness and light, and could do no wrong. And now you’re reduced to this. You could be anything right now. All that negativity that eats away at you, that you claim clears your mind, yet it makes you evil.”

“If it did, it would have been because of her.” 

“You claim to have choice. You could have chosen with this free will of yours, been something else. You could run away from her. But you don’t. What is it, immaterial bonds? Obligation written in the code of your existence? None of those matter with free will, does it? She can’t read you. She can’t even seem to control you. And yet you’re still here. Why?” He had the audacity to glare at me. “She might have self hatred, but so do you. I wonder if you’re nothing more than a reflection of hers. Is that why you can’t leave her? Is that why you’re just as trapped as she is? You don’t have free will at all, do you? Are you a parasite, Seventeenth? Which is it. Are you a slave to her? Or a slave to yourself?” 

I threw the cat across the room. He landed with a shriek and a bloody crack as his head collided with the wall. Then he fell down onto the floor, a bloody red streak following after him. His eyes unfocused, he turned his fogged expression up to leer at me. 

“What do you want from me?” He asked. “You spend so much time chasing me down… For what? To rub things in my face? Do you want me to hate you? Is that what you live off of? I’m nothing more than a talking cat. You shouldn’t care about what I think.” 

“You’re a stupid little thing,” I huffed. “So pitiful. So small.” I looked down on him with my eyes a gleaming smirk. “Look at you. I know your secret, you know. The Editor knows, and I know, and so does everyone. And we laugh at you.” 

The cat’s side heaved in exhausted pain. 

I knelt down in front of the little cat and watched his pitiful breaths. “What a novel idea, to want to be a real person. To be a human, growing up, exploring the world, falling in love, being more real than you could ever know. A form like this one here, you could never accomplish that in. You’re only one step away from stuffed animal. A toy. You’re stuck because you have too much pride to come forth and ask the Editor for her help. Are you afraid of what she might say? What if she says no out of some stupid principle she comes up with on the spot? You must wonder that all the time. So you’re trapped here, like this, being nothing more than the talking cat sidekick she always wanted you to be.” 

Pyrim didn’t even have the strength to raise his head. 

“I have an answer to the question you’re too afraid to ask, cat,” I laughed, tugging his head with a claw to face me. “She’ll say no. She’ll always say no. Because she loves pain. She loves suffering. There’s no good reason to it, either. She’ll make up some long winded answer that’s meaningless in end. And we’ll always be stuck without an end to the pain and misery we suffer. It’s entertainment. That’s all this is. Entertainment until she decides to come up with a plot and end it all for us.” I stood up slowly with an alcohol fueled grin and stretched those awkwardly long limbs of mine. “Looks like a big mess.” I looked around the room with a sly grin. “You should clean this up before your owner gets home. Maybe she’ll have you neutered. But, I mean, she might as well have already. You’re never doing anything with what you have, are you?” I looked down on the cat’s eyes clouded in agony one last time to truly enjoy the sight. Every part of him trembled. Perhaps he’d die in here. I doubted E would let him. She probably already sensed what I had done. But I could dream. She was certainly letting him suffer for the moment, that was pleasantly surprising. She cared even less than I thought. 

I turned and walked out on unsteady legs. Where would I go? I don’t know. Wherever I wanted. Stop asking. I don’t know the answers. The one with the steering wheel doesn’t either. But you know what? I finally got beating that little bastard out of my system. I got to see the look on his face, did you see it too? It was wonderful. Fucking wonderful. He was so sad, so desperately depressed at the realization that he’ll never truly have a life. Not like me. I had things he could never have. I had E. I had the world at my fingertips. I had my little Editor on puppet strings that I could dangle and move at will. I could find some tree in the void and deface it with her dead name all over, really make her angry. Or perhaps I could go looking for that bubble of hers that she’d made of all those she sought to protect. I could take them all out. She’d bring them back to life of course, that was nothing to her. But it was the principle of thing. I’d rip out her favorite character’s hearts and give them to her with all the sincerity of my past self. And make her kiss me to show affection. Maybe that would set her own the right track. It would be fun, certainly. It would be fulfilling. I’d be fulfilled. 

I walked into a tree. 

“Fuck – “ Shoving it away from me, I rubbed my head, only to walk into another and be sent sprawling back against the pine needle undergrowth. Staring up at ahead at the darkening sky, I frowned. My legs didn’t appear to be working properly. Nor it seemed, was my mind. Pine trees didn’t spin like that. Perhaps the broken glass was getting to me. I could almost see E in my head, wandering and swirling about. I reached up with my claws and imagined destroying her. 

It warmed my heart. 

I rose slowly, unsteadily, my whole body seeming to lurch towards a certain confusing direction. Growling, I forced myself up again. I had to will myself to move forward. She was probably hurting by now. I could almost feel the tug. She was getting close. She needed me. I needed her. I needed her desperately. 

When I walked again, this time I travelled to the one I wanted. It was difficult. I couldn’t think. But I knew exactly where she’d be. It was that pity party I was talking about. She had to be there. If I could imagine it, think it through, then I could be there. Hell, just like an Editor.

And there she was. A silhouette against a setting sun. The water was burned red. 

There were others beside her. 

Staring at the edge of the coastline, the sun setting in the horizon, E perched on top of driftwood with her legs crossed, her hair still tangled with salt water and flat against her scalp. Her voice was quiet, her head tilted towards the figure on her right. The figure ducked their head in response, and I caught a glimpse of her face. The two of them seemed to be the same age, but they couldn’t have looked more different. This little bitch she made was rosy cheeked, scraggly black hair filling out a head and overflowing down her back like porcupine quills. I could catch the color of the girl’s eyes in the dying light of dusk. Purple. What a cliché. The only thing worse I could imagine was red. 

But the one she turned to after the fact was far more interesting. That person was… Familiar. In my haze, I stumbled forward and tried to catch more than the silhouette of the man that stared ahead to the ocean. Burgundy hair, eyes gazing far ahead to the sea, and his hands firmly jammed in those loose track pants. Haggard, tired, and strange. Cold. 

I didn’t like it. 

“What the fuck is this?” I glowered behind E. “What are you doing? Characters before scenery? Since when are you this impulsive? Or, nevermind. I answered my own question.” 

E turned back to me in alarm, tripping over herself as she struggled off the log. The girl caught her at the last minute. The girls’ head whipped toward the sound of my voice like a shot. 

This girl had the gall to stare me down without an inch of fear in her eyes. She would have pulled it off, too, if her hands weren’t shaking. I glanced pointedly down to them, and she slowly let go of E, her mouth pulling back in a silent snarl.

The man, however, did nothing. He didn’t even turn his head. 

“Oh,” E said, her voice so lost. She drew her fingers up to her eyes, and the soft streams of color began to twirl around them. She stared at the softly glowing ephemeral forms. The tears that began to fall down her cheeks reflected the light like streams of diamond. Turning up to me, there was worry, fear, and relief. Those muddled emotions we could never seem to pull apart while we rotated around each other in this dance. And there I went, falling in love with her again. Disgusting.

I held a hand out to her. “Come.” 

E tried to pull out of that annoying girl’s grip, but she pulled my charge tighter with a growl. 

“Wait – you can’t –“

E gently placed on hand on the girl’s shoulder, the other still clutching at her eyes. “I told you. I need him. I’ll be fine.” 

I pulled her up against me when she found me, and the world shivered. 

“Stay still,” I commanded. 

“I smell alcohol,” she whispered. Her hand dropped as I lay a claw over the fluttering energy that spilled from her eyes. 

“I got drunk because I hate you.” 

“You can get drunk?” 

“Apparently.” 

“I never wished for that.” 

I glared down at her. “Do you really think I care what you wish for?” I pulled her hair out of her eyes. For the moment, she appeared obedient. But there was no telling if she would disobey me again. She was already looking away, back towards these characters she’d made. When I followed her gaze, I could see that little black haired vixen. Her whole body was tensed. As if she could fight me. I almost grinned. 

“What is this cunt?” 

“A girl,” E said. 

“I see that. Why are you making characters now, before the world is even formed?” 

“Maybe that system doesn’t work. I just…” She shook her head. “Nevermind, it’s not important.” 

“I don’t like the way you’re doing this.” I grabbed her chin. “You need to tell me. You’re mine. Remember?” Don’t think I didn’t notice the way that stupid purple eyed girl took a step forward. 

“I remember,” she whispered. 

“Who are they?” I flicked my eyes up to the girl. “She likes you. Is she here to alleviate your guilt?” 

“She’s just something new. Something different.” She pressed her cheek into my front, and sighed. “I put a piece of myself in here. That’s all. I wanted to see what would happen.” 

“A piece of yourself?” 

“A color. An aura. She’s vibrant. I just… I wanted something bright. I’m tired of the sickly dark.” Even as she said it, she enveloped herself in my arms. Her eyes closed, and all was right for a moment. 

“My name is Shift,” the girl called over to us. She slowly rose to her full, meagre height. 

“And what kind of role are you pretending to fill, Shift?” I teased.

“Nothing. I’m just me. That’s all.” 

“She’s a runner,” E muttered. “She runs. That’s all she does. All she’ll ever do. She’ll pretend to be a soldier, but she’ll run. And she’ll never stop to catch her breath.” That nostalgia was cloying. 

“Are you explaining your new inventions to me again?” I murmured against her ear. “Then what is that man?” 

She tensed. 

“He’s just a man.” 

“Don’t lie to me, Darkheart.” 

Slowly, the figure turned away from the view with his hands in his pockets. His back hunched, he meandered his way over to the purple-eyed girl, and simply nodded his head. 

“I was just looking for something,” he said. “Seems I found it.” 

“And what is that supposed to mean?” 

“It can mean whatever you like, demon. I’m just telling you what my superiors told me to. I can’t say much more than that.” 

“What’s your name?” 

He smiled faintly. 

“Damien.” 

“You look familiar.” 

“I have that kind of face.” 

“I’ve seen you before.” I narrowed my eyes with the haze still ebbing away at my mind, but E tugged gently on my hand. With the quietest of whimpers, she looked up to me. Pleading eyes. Lovely eyes. 

“Can we… Can we go somewhere?” She asked. “Just the two of us.”

“You’re manipulating me now?” I gripped her little neck in my claws, and felt her breaths. It was just enough to feel her. That throat was so tender, so fragile. And those eyes were even lovelier now. If I wasn’t so damn dizzy, perhaps I could have thrown her to the ground. “I don’t appreciate being lied to. These people are important to you, Darkheart. One of them is some kind of confidante. But this man.” I glared at him. There was something about him that made my mind buzz. Why couldn’t I quite remember his face? I knew him from somewhere.

“He’s recycled,” she coughed. I let her go, and massaged her neck. But the bruises remained. I was beaming in drunken glee. “He’s from the pirates. I just… I brought him back. I liked him too much. He was one of the sailors. I couldn’t bear it. There was too much inside him I wanted to keep. But I changed him to make him more suitable. And now he’s different.” 

I chuckled against her ear, nearly purring as I pulled her closer.

“Guilt?” I asked her.

She wouldn’t look me in the eye. 

“Is that what you wanted to keep from me? Guilt? You should by now, Darkheart. You can not keep things from me. And you can not disobey.” I took one more look at the two of them on the beach, before I pulled her closer and breathed in the scent of her hair. “Let me show you the consequences of lying to me. We’ll go somewhere no one will be able to hear you scream.” 

Her body tensed, but her head lolled to the side when I pressed my cheek against it. I flicked my gaze over and over to the two against the beach. I loved the girl’s reaction. That anger, that helpless defensiveness.

“Are you going to be alright?” She asked. 

E smiled faintly at her. “I’ll be fine.” E had made another imaginary friend, it seemed, and she wasn’t happy. 

But that man. I didn’t like the way he kept looking at the ocean. He was ignoring me. Ignoring us. This. I turned back to my Editor, but she didn’t look like she was in any state for interrogation. And neither was I. 

The world turned to ash around us. 

“Where are we?” She muttered into my chest. Her whole body was shivering under me. She was preparing herself. But she could never be prepared for the things I inflict upon her. 

“Some desert in the middle of an old continent. Does it matter? We’re away from the others. Now. I want you to be quiet.” 

My claws found their way to her neck with ease. She looked down at them with wild eyes, then up at me with a silent plead on her mouth. I chuckled, then threw her to the ground and went falling after her.

“I’m not exactly myself,” I said. “I had a bit too many, I think.” 

“Is it good? That feeling?” 

“Stop talking, Darkheart. I like you better screaming. But yes, it’s good. The world is swimming and I don’t have to suffer the thoughts of what you’ve done to me quite so harshly.” She obeyed me when I pulled her out her clothes, and when I did as I pleased with her. I watched her carefully for any sign of battle. 

When I was finished with her for the first time, I held her in my arms and stared at the broken sky. 

“I nearly killed your cat today. Did you know?” 

“Yes,” she whispered. 

“He was making these annoying meows. You know how he is. Doing nothing but whining. I told him you wanted nothing to do with him.” 

She kept her mouth shut.

“He wants to be human, you know. Would you let him?” 

Nothing. 

“Why did you let him suffer? Dramatic tension?” 

She tried to swallow. “You would have been angrier,” she managed. Her voice was a soft, little hiccup. “You would have… Tried harder. I didn’t… I…” 

I sighed and pet her hair. “You’re crying again, Darkheart. You know how I’m sick of your tears.”


	9. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Muse: Rolling Girl - Zoozbuh Cover: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkGUevn7SQ0 and Hypnotic - Vanic x Zella Day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvbpQx-dQfQ

E

I have a parasite. He won’t leave me alone. He wants to hurt me. He never seems to be at a loss for new and intriguing ways to make me lose my mind. And I am so very close to doing that. Everything is a blur, and the days seem to morph into weeks and months until I think I’ve lost who I am. Did I ever really have a self to begin with? I can remember that lonely girl sometimes. She was human. But I know that’s not who I am anymore. I wonder though, if I was ever her. She’s a world away, such a different kind of person. Maybe I’m worse than her. She wouldn’t let stupid things like this get her down. She wouldn’t care. She would fight back, I think. 

It’s so complicated for me to just think of a solution and wish this all away. I can’t seem to find the strands of the thoughts in my mind and braid them together into proper connections. I know, at least, that I am a monster. Anyone who enjoys the suffering of others would be. I know that the creature that haunts me is a thing of my own creation. I made him, long ago, but I at least remember that. I know I should be able to control the world. But for whatever reason, whatever stupid, terrible unconscious reason of my own making, he has power. In both the physical and metaphorical sense. I don’t have anything anymore. 

Pyrim is safe far away from this. I wanted to give him the chance to find his own self, away from me, doing whatever the hell he does to forget all of this. I don’t peer into his mind these days. I thought the chance to give him his own privacy would be better than seeing my mistakes thrown back in my face, as he so often thinks about. He needs a hobby. All he ever seems to do is complain and beg for things I’m wary to give him, anyways. 

But maybe he isn’t such a bad cat. Sure, he whines. But he has desires. And I gave him what I couldn’t give myself. Maybe he’s enjoying himself, somewhere. 

It seems more and more that I fancy myself a martyr. Is that what this is? Am I to be the sacrificial lamb to the slaughter in this stupid story? this all just drama? Guilt? What is true anymore? What is real? What part of me is working for and against me? 

Him. I know him, at least. Working against me. And I’m just supposed to sit here, and let this whole thing play out, loving each other, hating each other. Trapped in this crystal ball, playing off each other’s vices until the both of us are too hoarse to scream anymore. I shouldn’t be in love with him. I shouldn’t even consider him as something more than a playing piece. He’s just like all the others, isn’t he? 

But he’s not. I can’t see what’s inside him. I can’t control him. I can’t make him do things. 

The fear creeps into my bones at the realization of just how much he controls. 

He breathes down my back and protects my eyes and hurts me. That’s his job. But I know so little about him. The thing I supposedly created is something I can’t even touch. 

I could still feel his claws around my neck. It didn’t matter anymore, if he was here or not. Alone, he was still a big enough presence that he never truly left me. 

I gulped in a breath of hair. 

Walking along the shore of this broken planet, I marvelled at how far he pushed me. This place was nothing more than a desolate wasteland and a torrential sea. He’d finally left me alone to what shreds I had left of my sanity, but I knew he would return. He always returned. He cared about me too much to leave. And that was my fault too. All of this was my fault, in some form. I’d made all of this. This entire. This creation. I am to blame.

In my hands, I held the frog close to my chest. The slick, slimy skin was difficult to hold onto. I’d dunked the both of us into the water for some refreshment. The waves had felt good against my skin. The frog never struggled. Its eyes blinked slowly, one after another as it peered up at me. Its throat expanded in a ribbit. “The world is ending,” it said. 

I grit my teeth. 

“The world already ended,” I hissed. 

“The world is ending,” it repeated. 

“What does that even mean? It’s already gone. Take a look around. I broke it all. All your friends and family are dead. And those pitiful few are in some bubble off the coast repeating the same minutes of their lives in order to keep them safe and ignorant. But it’s gone. It’s all gone. Dumbass.” 

It ribbited again. “The world is ending.” 

“I hate you.” 

“The world is ending.” 

“I already have enough things that want to break me down. Are you going to join the list? Huh? Go ahead, you slimy little shit, say something. Make my day.” I held the frog up to my face, and it went silent. 

At least the sunset was nice. I wondered how much time I had. An hour? Less? Maybe if I pushed it, I could make it two or three. If I really tried, if I tampered down on that pain of creation and flew under his radar. Eventually those tears would start to leak again. Or he’d just arrive for no reason at all. I hated the way my shoulders tensed in preparation. I hated being scared. I’ve always hated being scared. 

“I want to say that all of this is my fault,” I told the frog. “And it is. But at the same time, I wonder if that’s the exact kind of thinking that makes it worse. If I blame myself, won’t I feel like I need to be punished? Punishing myself punishes the world. Maybe I need to be selfish. I haven’t tried that strategy before. What do you think?” 

The frog didn’t say anything, but I didn’t like that train of thought. I tried another. “No, that doesn’t sound right. Pyrim wouldn’t like that. And I don’t want to be selfish. You know where being selfish gets you, Mr. Frog? It gets you people screaming for mercy, and you just continuing to do what you like. It gets you ignoring all the hard work you made because you were stupid enough to get suckered into a temper tantrum. Nah, I don’t want to be selfish… But…” I tilted the frog to the side. “It’s hard not to be selfish when the world literally revolves around you. What do you think Pyrim would do? He’d nag me, right?” I bounced the frog along in the air. “Nag nag nag. E, you should have less dragons and more original thought put into your creations. E, you’re building too fast. E, you’re making ridiculous literary devices for the purposes of torturing yourself. E, you get bored too easily. E, it would really be better if you were just a psychopath again, at least it was simpler when you had no emotions.” 

I grimaced at the frog when it began to struggle and brought it back to my chest. “Yeah, sounds about right. And then he’d twitch that big ass tail of his back and forth and stare off into the distance like there’s nothing more than cotton between his ears. Well, there’s more now, but you know what I mean.” I sighed, petting the frog’s head. “Pyrim would tell me to be a good person. I just… I don’t know how to be a good person. It’s really hard. I don’t think it’s something you just know how to do. It has to be something you learn. And I’m not sure I ever learned. Or if I did, maybe I just ignore the little voice inside of my head telling me that these people mean something. Or maybe I took that little voice and shoved all of it into Pyrim, and now there’s nothing inside me left to tell me to stop. It’s just so hard to think that people and creatures have lives, when they’re so easily broken apart. The cat has his own thoughts and feelings, but I gave him the tools to have them. If I tried, I could make him think something else. I could make him feel anything. Do anything. Become another person if I wanted to. I could do that with anyone. And it… How can something like that be a person?” I trailed off, then pulled the frog up to my face and stared into those sightless, bored eyes of an animal without higher intelligence. 

“I’m an Editor, right? Aren’t I supposed to enjoy this? This is supposed to be fun. I’m supposed to have a world that I love by now. Right? Right?” Shaking the frog didn’t help. He started to struggle, and I got a better grip on him. My vision was a little watery and I was worried about losing him. “Why can’t I make monsters?” I asked desperately. “Why do I feel so bad about it? If I ever had some kind of responsibility, then… Then maybe I’ve already failed. Maybe it’s already too late.” 

The frog didn’t say anything. I sighed. “You know, you suck at conversation. If you’re a talking animal, you still have a long way to go before you’re anything like Pyrim.”

I paused, and the frog ribbited.

“The world is ending.” 

It landed with a sharp plop in the water about twenty feet away from shore. I wished I had a stronger arm. 

The world fell silent when I stopped walking. There were no flames anymore. No molten magma or dramatic flair. It was empty. The setting sun on the horizon provided the wasteland with color, but that was it. I was in the center of it all, a tiny dot of color against the continent of ash and dust buffeted by a sea.

I’d never felt so small before. Not even when I was different. At least that girl didn’t have enough self awareness to know that she was lonely. She pushed people away to make a cave to hide away in, and that cave was comfortable for a mind like hers. But now that mind was only one facet of many. She was just a part of myself. A tiny fraction. I could pull her out of me, this tiny fractal, and would barely notice a difference. 

“Dahlia.” 

That was funny. For a second I thought I heard something from far off in the distance. But that was impossible. I’d already killed everything. Except for the frog. Maybe. He might be dead.

“Dahlia!” 

My blood went cold. 

“Dahlia, is that you?” 

It came from behind me. A voice growing steadily louder, a voice of someone that shouldn’t exist. I turned on my heels, and nearly fell back into the wet shore. 

There was a man running up to my little beach, ragged and windswept, stopping within a few yards to catch his breath in shuddering pants. He looked like he’d been walking for hours. Footsteps on the beach came from deep into the center of the wasteland. The were bags under his eyes, auburn hair stuck to his head from sweat. His sweatpants were drenched, and the hiking backpack he carried slumped to the ground with a heavy clunk. An oxygen mask hung off kilter from his neck. His chest slowly heaved as he struggled for air. His aura was turquoise. 

My hair stood upright on my nape. 

“I can’t believe it,” he gripped his head with a look of pure disbelief, wiping his hair back from his forehead to get a better look. His eyes bulged in his skull. His cheeks were red from exertion. “I was certain this was a dud world. There was nothing. Not even on the radar. I just- Wow - It’s you.”

My heart was beating faster with every word. “You’re impossible,” I muttered. 

“I can’t believe it – I thought – damn, I nearly missed you, I was so sure, just waiting for the signal to come through for pickup but…” He trailed off as he studied my expression. One hand clambered for the oxygen mask, which he brought to his face to take a long toke through its filter before he let it go to speak again. “Dahlia?” 

“You can’t exist.” 

“But I do, though.” He gestured to himself, then quickly picked the oxygen mask up again. “I’m Damien. I’m a… Friend. Maybe you don’t recognize me, but I recognize you. I was out here to look for you.” 

“You’re not my creation.”

“I… No. I’m not.” His eyebrows furrowed. “Are you alright?” 

“You’re not real. You can’t be real. There aren’t any humans here. Everyone is in the bubble. You’re not in the bubble.” 

Slowly, he shook his head, and held up one hand defensively, the other on his mask as he took one tiny step forward. I felt the waves lap up against my ankles. 

“It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you. Maybe it’s been a while, right? About eight years or so, I think. A long time. But I’m not from this world. I came from a portal. It broke a hole in your reality and let me through. I’m from Earth. Your Earth. It might be a little weird, I’m not sure what’s going on here, but I’m not your creation. I’m real.” He smiled. 

“You’re… The Company?” I tried to look at him harder.

He swallowed. His mind raced with memories of the meetings he’d sat through that showed him of his organization’s past atrocities. But he had excuses. So many excuses that they piled on top of each other. “Yeah. But I promise, it’s not what you think it is. We don’t… I don’t have an intention of harming you. Really. That whole thing in the past – from the briefings, it sounded terrible, but I promise, it’s new management now. We’re trying to work with you. But we couldn’t contact you after you left our dimension. We had to send out search parties, and that whole mess – wow, that was what, six years back?” He scratched his head. 

“I erased my memory from all of you. All of that world.” Those meetings were filled with knowledge I’d burned long ago. They shouldn’t have ever known of Jennifer’s existence. Charlie was brought in for questioning. My mother interrogated. 

“The Company had failsafes in place for that. Your memory wipe was admirable, but it was… hah… kind of sloppy, sorry. It didn’t take much to get the first few people remembering again, and then it fell like dominoes. I promise, we’re not what you think anymore. The Company wants your help, not to control you.” He took a breath from his oxygen mask. 

“I could do it again.” I took another step back, and the water soaked the bottoms of my pants. I couldn’t take my eyes away from him. Meeting after meeting pumped him with the rudimentary ideas of Editors. They opened up a wound into the multiverse to look through every possible world, just to find me. There were hundreds out there, if not thousands. He was only one. I could only imagine what kind of damage that kind of cross-dimensional travel could do to such a fragile system. It meant nothing to my world, but I could only wonder how many were destroyed by just a rip through space and time. Damien here held an entire history inside his head of what I’d missed. Picking through his mind was unnerving. “I know how to do it now. I could make it so none of you ever remember again.” 

He stopped walking as his eyes flicked to my footsteps. “Okay. Maybe you could. But… You’re not, right? I’m still looking at you right now and I still remember you. And you haven’t whisked me away to your… bubble, or whatever. So that means you don’t think I’m a threat, right?” He grinned tentatively. I didn’t say anything. Too busy learning. “I mean, you’re an Editor. You could do anything. But you won’t. You haven’t. Maybe you even… Think of me as a friend?”

“Don’t push it.” 

“Sorry, sorry. I just don’t know how to tell you that I’m not a threat. I guess I’ll stand here.” He took a couple steps back from me. “Waiting. At least until you’re not afraid of me anymore. I’ll even answer questions if you want. I’ve got a bunch of stuff in my bag, some info on you, some stuff with the company, I’ll share everything if it helps to alleviate your fears. I have no intention of bringing you back by force. I’m just here, okay? Just another person.” He watched me for another moment, like he was looking for something. “And if you want to talk to me, you can. Do you want to talk?”

“Why would I want to talk?” 

“Hah, we’re in the middle of a wasteland with completely fucked up air percentages, and you’re just here, in the middle of it. Chucking frogs into the ocean. Frogs who don’t need air to breathe? I dunno. Maybe you wanted to talk.” 

“I don’t want to talk to you. You’re a lie.” I narrowed my eyes. There it was. The reason he couldn’t remember. I could feel it, like a tumor under the skin. 

“I’m telling you the honest to goodness truth.” He brushed a hand against his chest before he took another puff from his oxygen mask. 

“I know that’s what you think you’re telling me.” I stopped. There was no reason to be backing away here. He was just a human. He couldn’t do anything to me if he tried. And I knew exactly what he was now. It was kind of sad, really. It wasn’t something I would have done. I wasn’t that sloppy. I could only imagine the ramifications on his mind a process like that would have. “You’re a mindless drone the Company sent to take me back and do their dirty work for them,” I said. “Your mind has been programmed to be whatever they want it to be. Even if you thought you were telling the truth, you’re saying what small percentage they’ve allowed you to remember.” 

He smiled like a clueless puppy. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about. I know it sounds kind of crazy, that I showed up here, that the Company is changed, but really. I’m just a grunt. I have a family, far away from here. I got a life. Maybe that’s what it feels like to you, from what you remember, but I promise I’m not lying. Do you want to take a look at some of my files?” He moved to his knees and unzipped the backpack, then got up and waved the laminated pages that were crumpled at the bottom in between the ration bars and hazmat suit. “I brought these just in case. Multiple different languages too, just in case. We’ve been making strides in metaphysics and theoretical editorial magic. Nothing that I know how to do, but you know. Maybe there’s something there you could find that you didn’t know before. We got scientists on that stuff. You could see proof that I’m not lying.” He was imploring me. That grin was asking for a positive answer. 

“This all kind of sucks.”

“Huh?” 

“I know what your orders are. I know what’s in your backpack. None of that actually matters.” I pushed my hands into my pockets. The sea felt nice against my feet. The frog slowly flopped back onto the shore and began to ribbit again. I ignored the constant reminders that the world was ending. “I know what you think is the truth. But I just went through what’s in your backpack, your pockets…” I tilted my head from side to side. “Your mind. They never really told you the extent of my powers in those briefings that were downloaded into your mind. I see everything. That’s why it hurts so much. How do you expect that tranquilizer to work on me? Or for that bullet to reach the shoulder you were taught to hit? You say that you’re not here to bring me in by force, but you were prepared for that, and that’s already a strike against you. You lied to my face. Not to mention all of those practices the Company still uses. I know what’s in their basement. Every skeleton in their closet. I can pick the rest from your brain.” 

That soured the grin. He was a kicked puppy, now.

“But that’s not your fault either. Because they lied to you too and you couldn’t have known that.” I frowned. “You’re a droid made out of human flesh. You were built to love that cult and everything it stands for.” 

He blinked, and I was standing beside him. I placed a hand on his cheek. He had a knife in one hidden sidearm slot and a handgun in the other, but his body wouldn’t move for him, not unless he was taking that oxygen mask and taking another draught. I looked into his eyes. There was still a personality somewhere in there. And the worst part was, it was still somewhat alive. It looked back at me and tried to scream, but its mouth was sewn shut. They took all the things that made this man himself, and carefully embroidered it with programming that would make him compliant. They didn’t even bother to wipe the memories from him. They were still there, layered on top of each other. At least a dozen lives for different purposes. I didn’t have a leg to stand on, of course. Those in glass houses shouldn’t thrown stones. “Do you know about Ray? Your younger sister?” There was Jennifer, hidden away in his last profile still downloaded somewhere in there. 

“I don’t have a younger sister?” He laughed nervously. “I’m the youngest of six brothers. And I have a wife and a two year old daughter. And a turtle. But no younger sister.” 

“Do you know who Jennifer is?” 

“You mean your old manager? I know of her, she was in the briefings.” 

“You used to know her. You worked for her. You were the best mechanic in all of that Company branch. And you were working on a robot, named Morgan. She drove you mad because she was a conduit for the voices of the damned. Do you remember that?” 

“No?” He stared at me in disbelief. His shoulders relaxed, though. I wondered what it was that did that. Was it the gentle stroking of his cheek, or was it the careful work I’d done to calm him inside? All it took was a gentle tinkering of his mind, and he was at peace again. I didn’t break his will, I swear. I just let him realize I wasn’t a threat. He decided the rest. I wasn’t going to be like the Board. 

Well. I guess they never killed an entire planet before. Pick your battles? Heh…

I let him move, and he stumbled a bit on his own two feet. But he didn’t run. Ponderous eyes looked down on me. 

“How are you doing that?” 

“You’re supposed to be smart, Damien. I’m a God. How do you think I’m doing that?” 

“No but – they never said anything about this in the briefing. You’re in my head. Like, I can actually feel it. Are these my own thoughts? What’s going on? Why… Why can I shoot?” 

“I calmed you down. You can’t shoot me because I’m not letting you. Self preservation on my part. You said yourself you’re just a grunt, and you don’t know things. That made it easier for Laurent to control you, but they didn’t think of what might have happened if I found you. Maybe they thought they’d never find me at all. An oversight.” I prodded further, unfurled more, and saw a lot more lives in the head of a Damien Arnarsson. A lot of different names all stemming from an identity that had been worn so thin and been so carefully plucked it was a wonder I could even distinguish it from the others. It had been picked down to the bones. “A lot more people have been in your head. They weren’t so nice about it. You want me to open the dam?”

“There’s nothing to be free from! I, I don’t know what the hell you’re doing to me right now, but I would appreciate if we could just take a step back here, get you out of my head, and get back on a better foot.” He managed a nervous laugh, but his eyes were wide like a deer’s caught in the lights of a truck. “You can have the gun, the tranqs, the knife, anything you want. I’m sorry I wasn’t completely honest before but believe me, I don’t want to die, and I know you don’t want to be alone. Right?” 

“Being programmed to not wanting to be unprogrammed is quite a nice trick. But I think you have more will than that, don’t you?” I urged him on with a look. “There has to be something else in there beyond all the bullshit that Laurent put inside you, right? If you just try hard enough, maybe you can find it. I could give you that strength to try, if you wanted.” 

This time he really did fall. I pulled my hand back as he tripped over his own backpack and went off into the wet sand. Picking himself back up, he turned on me with wild eyes, knife in hand.

“Seriously, just leave me alone. Get out of my head.” 

“Damien.” 

“Dahlia.” 

I rolled my eyes. “You can call me E. If there’s even a part of you that wants to come back from this hollow shell, can you at least try? Give me something here. I’m waiting for your subconscious to yell back at me with all this pinging, but it’s like it doesn’t want to talk.”

“Get out of my head!” He brandished the knife. The frog hopped past him. 

“The world is ending,” it so kindly reminded me.

“The frog said you should let me give it a try deprogramming you.” 

Damien blanched. “I don’t understand why you think the Company would do something like that. They’re not like that.” 

“You’ve sat in on their meetings, Damien. Or at least that’s the memories they gave you. For all we know you were programmed with those already inside. But at the very least you KNOW they’re not angels. Is it so hard to believe that they’ve done this to you? Try thinking about it a little harder. They still gave you free will. All they’re doing is building a personality around you that strongly suggests to you what their want is what you want. I can SHOW you, if you just let me.” 

Damien had Dahlia’s memories in his head. All the important ones, at least. I gave him what he needed in order to see how far they would go. And in that split second, he looked tortured. It was kind of liberating, actually. 

“They’re not… They’re not like that anymore.”

“Programming.” I said it with jazz hands. “You know they are. You’ve seen enough.” 

“They wouldn’t lie. The mermaids – Laurent – all of that, there’s good reason.” 

“More programming!” And more vigorous jazz hands.

“But… I don’t understand. There’s nothing to deprogram. These are my own memories. There’s nothing else. I can’t even feel anything. You keep rooting through my head but there’s just me. My family. My work. How… How can any of this be programming? It’s real.” 

“How? I can show you. Right now. If you let me.” 

The knife in his hand faltered, then he slipped it back into his holster with a frown. “I… This doesn’t feel right.” 

“I know. It shouldn’t. You were built against it.” 

“Why… Why would you have a reason to lie. This doesn’t make any sense.” So tentative. It was almost sweet. The man thought there was still a chance. I would too, if I believed I had a family to go back to.

“I take pride in showing the Company that they’re a bunch of idiots.” 

He flinched. “They’re not.” 

“You know what they did to me. You know it doesn’t match up with the stories they gave you. You can pretend they do. But you know the truth.” It would have been easier to just do it. He was pliable. I was a God. But he was real. I didn’t want to mess with something real. It felt wrong. And it felt far too easy. If he was real, and he was just a building block, then I was truly lost. Then there was nothing real anymore. 

It didn’t come to that. “Fine,” he muttered. “Fine, show me. Don’t kill me, please. Just… A taste.”

“Just enough, then.” 

I put a crack in Laurent’s wall with nothing more than a thought. It was all he needed. Damien’s eyes widened as conflicting information began to spill into the story of the arbitrary story provided to him. That turquoise aura glowed just a little bit more vibrant. But I was saddened to see it darken after. It made sense. The real him wasn’t this person. Whatever it was within those memories was something worse. That puppy was already disappearing. His smile had faded to a deep and foreboding frown. My stomach hurt. 

“What is that…”

“Your real life, alongside a dozen other programs. There are more constructs in there, but that’s the real one I tried to pull through. You can feel it, right?” 

“It doesn’t… This…” He slowly sank to his knees, his chest beginning to heave. He brought the oxygen mask up to his face again and took a hyperventilating breath. 

“There’s more, if you want it.” 

“I can’t do it,” he muttered. “Just… Stop for a second. Let me have this. Have what I have now. For at least a little longer.”

“Naivety?”

“Security.” 

“Well. You can choose what you want, I guess. I’ll give you that. But, do you really want to live like that knowing that they’re lying to you?” 

He brought his head into his hands. I leaned over, and patted his shoulder.

“I know the feeling.” 

“It’s nuts.” 

“Yeah, welcome to the club.” I sat down beside him in the wet sand, nudging the frog with my toe. “Those lives all feel like fractions in the grand scheme of things once you’ll remember them all. And then it’ll be hard to distinguish truth from fiction.” 

“What if I don’t do that? What if I stay as I am? What if I’m alright just being the grunt?” 

“Do you want to be ignorant and not know the injustice they’ve done to you? Or do you want the whole story?” I glanced over to him. He was staring at his hands. 

“This… This me doesn’t want to know. But that other me. That little flash was screaming.” 

“He’s been doing that this whole time, actually. He wants out.” I looked at the way his color flickered around his hands. It had calmed down, but it had been so violent in those few moments he was free. “Your aura is a very different personality from the one you’re showing right now. It wants to be darker.” 

“Aura?” 

“The color around you. It’s like a little highlighter for your soul.” I shrugged. “I don’t really know if I made it up the moment I became an Editor, or if they’ve always been there. That doesn’t matter. But yours is calm, dark and turquoise. You’re not some vibrant little puppy you pretend to be. You’re chained to something.” 

He slowly closed his eyes, and listened to the sound of the waves meeting the shore. His hands were shaking. I could see what he was thinking about. I would too. Those brothers that didn’t exist and their hockey tournaments. His daughter drawing her first attempt at a family portrait. His wife on their wedding day. His first job as a line cook, his brief stint in the military. His eventual transfer. It made for an unquestioning personality, for certain. Laurent was thorough. 

Taking one last breath from the oxygen mask, he sighed. “I’ve done what I need to do,” he finally said. “Do it.” 

“Are you afraid?” 

“Of course I’m afraid.” 

“You’ll cease to exist,” I said, seeming to realize it for the first time myself. 

“Shut up and do it.” His hands clenched into the wet sand. “If it’s close enough to me as I am, maybe he won’t be so bad.” 

It was a pretty lie. “Let’s hope,” I told him.

Maybe this Damien was a lie. But he wasn’t so bad. 

His aura went dark. It was a deep, navy mix between green and blue, like the waves of an ocean being looked at from the sea floor towards the surface. When he opened his eyes again, he was staring ahead at the sunset. Slowly, his hands folded around his knees as he brought himself into a more comfortable position. His eyebrows creased. One more deep breath, and he dropped his head. 

“I don’t like this.” 

“Yeah, I didn’t think you would. Ripping off a bandaid and all that.” 

“Thanks, though. I guess.” 

“Don’t mention it.” I curled up a little tighter. It was getting chilly. I couldn’t seem to stop shivering. “Do you want some air? That oxygen mask can’t be comfortable.” 

“That would be nice, thanks.” 

I let Damien breathe and stretched out on the sand, digging up little holes with my toes. The water kept pushing them back smooth. 

“So this is what you’ve been doing the whole time, huh?” He asked softly. 

“Yeah. Pretty much.” 

“Making a wasteland.” 

“The world is ending,” the frog ribbited. 

“This isn’t the finished product,” I argued. “I’ve just… I’ve come to a road block. I’ve got a problem with my own subconscious.” 

“Is your own world is fighting against you?” 

“Not the whole world, just one person. A parasite. He won’t leave me alone. He’s… Bad.” I bit my lip. “And then there’s whole philosophical dilemma of treating actual, living human beings like toys and playing with their lives, you know? How am I supposed to make a world that has suffering and be able to justify it?”

“You ever hear of the ancient Greeks?” 

“No?” 

“Real nasty Gods. Human, kind of. They didn’t let their status get in the way of their own selfish desires. Because as omniscient and omnipotent as they are, they were never omnibevolent. They were never perfect, and no one batted an eye.” He shrugged. His eyes were sad. He was flicking through his memories to catch himself up to speed. I didn’t blame him. More than a decade of his life, and he was only now getting the chance to see what he’d lost. I gave him the decency of privacy. “You’re just a human. And you were never a good person before. People can’t expect you to be perfect as a God just because you’re unlocked the rest of yourself. You’ve got the world’s greatest super power of all time. I know I’d use something like that to do a lot of bad things. And I’m not even a psychopath.” 

“I’m not that person anymore. I thought I had some kind of obligation to be a good person. That’s what Pyrim always says. Or hints at. I can’t really tell these days.” I felt myself curl up tighter. “It’s more than wanting all the pizza in the world, or unicorns and dragons. I want a story. A dark, evil story. I want to see people suffer with twists and turns.”

“You want a realistic world so you don’t feel alone. And human suffering is a natural part of life. You can’t be expected to enjoy something without fault. The beauty of something is in the imperfection.” 

“You’re very strange, telling me to let people die.” 

“I’ve had a rough day,” he smiled a tired smile.

I smiled back. “Me too.” 

“So, if this is a work in progress, what did you have planned, then?” 

“I… I don’t know. I was planning to mope around and hate myself for a while. And let that parasite come back and fuck me up some more.”

“The parasite that wants to fight you. That sounds a little self destructive.” 

“Yeah.” I turned back to the sunset. “I didn’t like my old world anyways. It wasn’t what I wanted. It was boring. Like something out of high fantasy, with nothing creative to its name.” I could hear Pyrim in my own voice. “I built the world, then the characters, and before I knew it I had a boring, empty world. All that’s left is floating around in some bubble halfway across the world with their memories purged.” 

“Ah.” 

“Sorry, sensitive subject.” 

He shrugged, then lay back against the sand. 

“You ever expect to end up like this?” He asked.

“That’s a hard question to answer. I’m not sure I existed before any of this, I didn’t really end up as anything.” 

“Oh, you’re still you. You just have something more now, but they can’t erase that you’re still Dahlia.” 

“I’m not Dahlia. I don’t think I ever want to be Dahlia. Imagine what Dahlia would do to a world.”

“What, kill a bunch of people and watch the world suffer?” 

I frowned. “You got me there.” 

He laughed to himself. It was forced. “Well, maybe you’re not her. I never really interacted with her. But I know Jennifer did. And she would say things about Dahlia. A lot of people would. She had this strange aura about her. A lack of something. It had nothing to do with whatever diagnosed mental illness she might have had. It was like something really was locked away.” 

“I never felt like that.” 

“If you’ve never felt something, would you know you’re missing it?” 

I swallowed. 

Trying to smile and failing, time after time. Not understanding why Miranda and the others acted the way they did. 

“I don’t know,” I said. He closed his eyes, and we listened to the waves. 

“Have you tried making people first?” He asked after a while.

“Huh?” 

“Making a person before you make a world. If you put a little bit of yourself inside them and rear them on your own, maybe they’ll feel more real to you. If you keep making cardboard cut outs, then you’re only ever going to feel like you’re dealing with ants.” He crossed his arms behind his head as he got more comfortable on the surf. 

“I… I didn’t think about that. Maybe.” Pyrim had no attachment to any world. Nor did the Seventeenth. It was possible. Probable, even. “What kind of person should I make?”

“That’s up to you. But if you want suffering so bad, then someone who can deal with that sort of thing? Someone built to suffer.” 

“That’s pretty vague.” 

“I refuse to tell the artist how to draw.” 

“Fine.” I raised a hand as I faced the ocean. I used what I knew. I found a piece of myself, polished it off, and made that the focal piece. Cowardice. Maybe that would keep her alive. Maybe that would make her safe. 

A girl stared back at me ankle deep in the waves. Her aura was purple, just like her eyes. A bright, vibrant purple that rippled when she moved. It was hypnotic. Beautiful. And so very new. 

“Who are you?” She asked. 

“I’m the Editor.” I blinked and set my hand back down as I sat up. “You can call me E, I guess.” 

The girl that was my age waded to shore as disoriented as I expected her to be. Running a hand through ragged black hair, she seemed almost surprised to see it as she moved it in front of her eyes. She looked down at herself in her basic cloth shirt and pants, and twirled around to get a better look behind her. Vibrant purple eyes decided to focus on me when she realized her own form wouldn’t give her any answers. 

“Who am I?” 

“I don’t know yet.” 

She was startled. “What does that even mean?” 

“She just made you,” Damien sighed. “I know. It’s strange.” 

“She…” 

“Nice to meet you. I’m God.” I grinned at her. She stared at me a moment longer. There was enough in her mind to have some semblance of how a world might work, but I hadn’t given her much more than that. I didn’t even really know her personality yet. She was just, there. A person. She could be anything. A blank canvas. An opportunity. 

The girl crouched in the surf with narrowed eyes and surprised me. 

“You made me? What do you want from me?”

“A story. I don’t know. You’re an experiment to see if I could make something I care about.” I leaned forward. 

She was upset at that. But she wouldn’t let me see it. She slowly moved forward, then sat herself elegantly down in front of me. The water soaked her clothes. She wasn’t cold. Or rather, she didn’t care that she was. 

“So I’m meaningless.” 

“No, the very opposite. I want you to be as meaningful as possible. What name do you want?” I leaned forward. 

“You’re going to let me name myself? What kind of God are you?”

“Bad question,” Damien said. 

“God, Editor. I’m human, really. I’m no better than you. At least, that’s what I wish it could be. I don’t know what I’m doing. You’re the first. I’m taking suggestions if you want.” 

“Then who’s he?” She pointed at Damien. 

“I didn’t make him.” 

“Is he a God too?” 

“He just a person. He found me.” 

“I don’t know what I’m doing here anymore,” he offered. “I’m just… Being here.” 

The frog ribbited. “The world is ending.” I grabbed it and placed it back in my lap.

She looked between the two of us for some kind of hidden message. As it was, all of this sounded insane. But there wasn’t much else to believe. She could see what the world was behind me. There was nowhere to run. And I knew she would, if given the chance. This girl was a runner. 

“So there’s nothing here.” 

“Yep,” I said. 

“And I’m the first.” 

“The first of the new world. I fucked up the last one. And now I’m not sure where to go from here.” 

She narrowed her eyes. “And you’re taking suggestions.”

“Within reason. But there’s something important here, that I want to be upfront about.” I pushed a finger into the sand. “I’m only human. I want to tell a story. And a story is both good and bad. I can’t be perfect. I’m not going to be making Eden.” 

“You’re going to torture me.” 

“No. You have free will. You can choose do what you want with that. But the world I am making is going to be brutal. I wanted to prepare you for it. Because…” I sat back, and rubbed my shoulder. “Well, I don’t want you to hate me. I just want to make a story. That’s all. I want to make something that can keep me entertained. And keep the world alive because of it.” 

She tilted her head to the side. “You’re very strange.” 

Damien nodded his head absently as he watched the sea. I managed a smile. 

“I want to get things right this time. I don’t want a stagnant world that leads to destruction just because I get bored. I want the world to shift on its axis. Become something. Change, and not just because of me.”

“Call me Shift.” 

I blinked. 

“I like the name. It’s what I’m going to do.” She smiled. “I guess if you’re going to throw things at me, it’ll be my job to make sure to stay alive, right? And send the world reeling.” 

My heart clenched. 

“Shift.” I nodded my head. “Shift. Okay.” 

“It’s a lot, for you to rely on me and me alone,” she mussed. “I’m not sure what you want me to do, here. And there isn’t much. No cities, no nothing.” She looked behind me to the wasteland beyond. “It’s kind of…” 

“Dead,” commented Damien.

“It won’t be,” I said. “I’m going to build. With your help. I want to make something. I don’t know what yet. But more than anything, I want to know who you are, Shift.” A runner. That’s all I could feel from her. Her mind was so exquisitely quiet and filled with potential. There had to be more. But that was up for her to decide. She was an art piece left to interpretation. 

“I wish I knew that.” She sighed. “But it seems there’s a lack of information in my head. It’s strange. I know what a mother and father are, but I don’t have either of those. They never existed.” 

“Maybe they will. I’ll find a place for you.” I stood with my arms up to the sky and stretched. The frog ribbited to the sun. “Let’s go for a walk,” I said. “Damien and I have spent too much time moping around. Maybe I can find some geographic outcroppings to turn into something.” 

“I think I’d like that.” Shift jumped to her feet. “I think I like moving.”

Running, more like. Damien stood up behind her and took one last look at his backpack. 

“Do you really you want that?” I asked him out of curiosity. 

“Not really. I was just thinking. I do have a family somewhere out there. They think I’m dead. I was wondering what they would say if I showed up at their doorstep looking like the way I do.” 

“Would you want to?” I hesitated. 

“Well, I suppose you could send me back. That whole old world, trying to rekindle the past. I don’t even know what my husband would look like anymore. So… No. Not really.” He brushed his hair back. “The Company would track me down the instant I came back. And I know what that would entail. I think I want to see this through, what it is you’re doing. There’s no use in thinking of the past, and the future is right here, being laid out in front of me. It’s strange, I still don’t quite feel real. But maybe this is the most real I’ve felt in years, and I just don’t know it yet.” 

“That doesn’t make much sense.” I raised an eyebrow, but Shift nodded. 

“I know what you mean. It’s this floating sensation. There’s something about this place. I feel strange.” 

“I’m going to have to question you about that,” I said as I began to walk along the shore. “I need to take notes. Find a way to make this world the best that anyone has ever seen. I want this to be a good world. Well, maybe good’s not the right world. But an interesting one. One to remember. You know?”

“I get it, I get it,” Shift smiled as she caught up to me. “Can I suggest that whatever you do to me, it doesn’t involve too much crying? I was thinking of crying and I don’t think I like the idea of that. Better yet, if we could just avoid that altogether, that would be great. No crying at all. Or hurting. Or dying.” 

“I’ll take everything under advisement,” I grinned back at her goodnaturedly. “I don’t even know the story yet. Maybe it won’t even be so bad. We don’t know yet.” 

“I’d like it not to be bad,” she agreed with an enthusiastic nod of her head. We were talking about her suffering, and her personality was so bright. She kept smiling at me. And she meant it. I could see it in her mind. That kind of kinship I hadn’t tried to make. But it was there all the same. I started to wonder if I ever really knew what a friend was. 

Damien walked slowly behind us, kicking up sand with his shoes. His hands in his pockets, his whole body seemed to slouch the more he moved, like he was a building increasingly losing its foundations. But we waited for him, and he still smiled faintly when he caught our eyes and slowly perked back up.

“You’re so slow, old man,” I called back to him. 

“I’m barely thirty,” He rolled his eyes. My mouth widened into a beam, and I held the frog tighter. 

“That’s old to me,” I laughed. 

“The world is ending,” the frog ribbited.


	10. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gonna hit you up with another abuse and sexual assault warning. 
> 
> Muse: 
> 
> Love me Love me Love me - Miyashita Yuu - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cqqGOvOGfI  
Madame Macabre - God Syndrome: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSOSJ0iRH1A

THE SEVENTEENTH 

E was thinking too much. 

I followed her every waking moment, of course. There was no way I would let her out of my sight now. Not with those that she kept coming back to. What were they, those creatures that haunted her and disappeared just as I neared them? I couldn’t tell you. They just appeared one day and I was expected to believe that they weren’t somehow important to the story? What kind of person would suddenly introduce characters so late in the twilight?

I came to my senses once the alcohol left. It had happened slowly, with much pain and less regret than I’d imagined. But in the light of day it was then that I learned the truth. She’d woken up smiling. 

She thought she had a leg to stand on. I could see it in her eyes even now. She wouldn’t admit it of course, no matter what I did to her. No amount of torture would tell me more than everything she thought I wanted to hear. But she acted like she had something to live for. A reason to exist. All of that work trying to show her the error of her ways, and now it felt like it was all for nothing. 

She walked ahead with purpose down the barren coastline, her hands raised in the air as she traced the outcroppings of invisible city skylines and thought of stories she no longer shared with me. 

“Where are they?” I asked her. 

“Who?” 

“The girl. And that man. We left them and you’re acting like they’re meaningless.”

“I don’t know. I don’t pay attention to them. They do what they want. I think I put them in the bubble with the others. I’ll bring them in when I have a world for them.” 

“They’re important to you.” I hated playing the bigger person. But she expected something solemn and quiet to put her in her place it seemed. I just wasn’t scary enough when I had a personality. Though when did I ever listen to that cat, right? He was probably bullshitting. I guess when it wasn’t enough anymore, desperate times call for desperate measures. Sue me. Playing a part works, alright? Let me be my evil self. 

“They’re just characters.” She smiled. It made my stomach churn. Alright. Let’s try something else then. 

I grabbed her by the neck, and she actually laughed. If I had teeth, I’d be grinding them. 

“Are you upset?” 

“How dare you laugh.” I kept my voice low. It tasted better low. 

“I’m just surprised that this gets a rise out of you.” She waved my hand away. I’d left a bruise there, but she acted like it had been nothing. I knew I’d hurt her. She wasn’t fooling anyone. “I talked to Pyrim. Maybe I should get him a human form, after all. He could help with the plans I have for this world. It would be nice if he could live in it.” 

“When did you talk to him?”

“When I please. I can give him what thoughts I want. I don’t have to physically visit him. Doesn’t make sense to have to travel just to talk to him, no?” She was trying to get away from me with a smile. That wasn’t going to work, dear Darkheart. I know your little games. 

“You’re acting like a child,” I said. I moved my neck down to her level, and grabbed her shoulders. She gulped, that faint, noticeable movement of her throat proving that not all was lost. But she was really starting to get on my nerves. She was hiding something. She had to be. She was a cat that had drunk all the damned cream and I hadn’t managed to catch her yet. I could still smell the milk on her lips. 

“Maybe.” She shrugged. Even as she shivered, she looked me in the eye. “I want to build, Seventeen. Can you let me do that? Please?” 

My grip around her shoulders tightened. But I released them when I had nothing to say. There was no probing that mind, and I’d find out exactly what had her in such a good mood eventually. 

She went back to what she always did, and I went back to watching her with this pit in my stomach that wouldn’t fucking go away. She was planning, and she wasn’t telling me anything. I was supposed to know everything about her. I thought I could see it in her eyes. But there was something about what she had done that I had missed. And it had to be those damned fools she’d built before making the actual world. There wasn’t anything else that had changed. What had it been. Did she make more yes men that had told her she was alright being a monster? Had they loved and cherished her like she pretended she deserved? Perhaps she’d funnel her negativity into them next. 

I rolled my eyes.

I followed in step with everything she did. I couldn’t lose her. Anything she did could have been another way for her to try to get out of my grasp, and she was already squirming for a way out. She danced the day away with her hands in front of her, using the rhythm to make the landscape soar. Overhead the sun beat down and she sweated with effort. 

I watched her effort. She was fluid. Everything she made had been half thought through, the rest left for the world to fill in with the logic she’d come up with herself. A computer program that told the world to do what made sense to it. Lazy, I thought. Still, I joined her. I was her partner. As the buildings went up around us and the city became itself, I moved with her, closer and closer, until I held her close and pressed my face into the fresh scent of her hair. Around us the roar of a metropolis was starting to take form in our ears. The cookie cutter background characters used nondescript vehicles along the road we now stood in the midst of. They flowed by us with inches to spare. People moved in rivers down the sidewalks with brief cases going to jobs that hadn’t existed seconds ago. And no one looked our way. The world ignored us today. That was what she wanted. Which was strange for her. She loved being the center of attention. 

When she was done, she looked up at me. The colors had started to flow again. She held one eye shut with her hand, the other blinking painfully as she waited for the release she’d expect of me. The more I looked at her, the more agonizing that power seemed for her. Oh. I could relish this. 

“What do you want?” I taunted her. My body twisted around hers, the hands languidly playing with the waves of aura that poured out from her mind. I never quite brought them to her eyes. 

“You,” she said. Tentative. A good first step. Maybe there was still a chance for her to return to me. 

“Oh? Now you want me?” 

“I need you,” she corrected. “Please.” How presumptuous. 

I narrowed my eyes. “Of course you do. But do you realize how much?” My claws slowly twined around her neck as I felt her gulp in her last breath of air. Slowly, her eyes began to widen as I leaned in closer. I could just not. I could let her suffer. I could take my little powers and run off to leave her dying agony. It was possible. All it would take is not doing something. All I would have to do is untangle myself from her heaving body, the warm neck in my hands. Just let it go, teleport somewhere else and leave her to cry and moan for something she never bothered trying to do herself. Lazy, that’s what she was. And it made me sick. 

“What if I left you?” I asked her. 

She paled. She couldn’t talk, of course. But I could imagine what she would say. She wouldn’t even try to call my bluff. Of course she wouldn’t. She knew what I was capable of. She knew I’d do it. 

There was that fear I wanted so badly. Her eyes wide, those pupils dilated and reflecting the monster she’d made. 

“Why don’t you tell me what those people are to you?” I asked her. 

She didn’t even react. She was stone. I waited. Nothing. She merely watched me, her body trembling, as if daring me to ignore the wretched need inside me to take it away from her. I had to. It was my job. What I was meant to do.

I took her color away, and let her go without another word. 

She massaged her neck. Her legs wobbled, but she found her balance eventually. 

“Thank you,” she breathed. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t need to. She knew what she’d overstepped. 

And then she was back to walking. 

I followed her like a shadow. 

“What are you planning to accomplish with something like this?” I whispered in her ear. If she wouldn’t answer my questions, then I’d play games again. Yet another unoriginal world with unoriginal characters that she could kill and not care about, and my nose was back to the grindstone. “This world will fail just like the others. You’re thinking this through one even less than the other. It’s like you want your world to fail, Darkheart.” 

“Maybe it will. But what am I going to do if I don’t? Am I going to just sit somewhere and let death take me? Can I even die?” 

“I could kill you.” 

“You couldn’t. You’d cease to exist.” She crossed her arms, but she looked perturbed. Good. She was prettier that way. “I just want to do something. I can’t be like this forever.” 

“You’re going to let people die again.” I waved an arm towards the rush hour we wandered through like lost little lambs. “These are all temporary until you get bored, like you did before. And all of them are in your head. They die, and you’ll hear their screams. Give up.” 

“Yeah,” she sighed, and rubbed her eyes. “I don’t think I’m going to. People are going to die again. I think I have stories I want to tell, this time. And none of them are good. People will die and suffer. That’s life. That’s what I want.” 

“And how does that make you feel?” I breathed. She was stifling. 

“Like a God.” She crossed her arms, then turned abruptly to face me. Her eyes narrowed. Her shoulders went back, her chest puffed out, and she glared up at me. As short as she was, for a moment it was as though we were eye level. It made my claws twitch. I stood up straighter. “So what if I make a world of pain and suffering? Their negativity flows into you. You can’t get any worse than this. I have the strength to do what I want. Why not use it?” She had the gall to grin at me. And I twitched my head to the side as I tried to perceive what she had just told me. Surely she didn’t have such a death wish. Did she love pain that much? Did she forget who I was? Did she even care anymore? “I’m the Editor making the world. I get to choose how it’s made. I don’t have to be a perfect person. I don’t even have to be a good person. I never thought they had to worship or love me, I just wanted to build. I don’t need to be their God. Good, evil, none of that matters to a human. I’m fallible.” 

“Fallible.” I tilted my head further.

“So if you want to play at guilting me into hating myself, I’m afraid you’re… You’re fucked. Whatever you want to do, I’m going to keep going. And I’m not going to break this world. I’m going to do what I want. And I’m not going to feel bad about it.” That had to be bravado. She didn’t have that confidence. If I glared her down, she’d falter. She had to. 

She didn’t. 

I grabbed her by the neck, and she continued to grin. I choked her, and she continued. She didn’t stop. I couldn’t deal with it. I could feel the insanity dripping down my spine. Not even moving my jaw, enveloping her in darkness. None of it.

“Are you finished?” She choked out. She looked up at me. Pure defiance. 

“You’re using me.” My voice was deep. It could terrify her. It should terrify her. It didn’t terrify her. “What am I to you?” 

“What a question,” she muttered. 

“I’m your damned warden, Darkheart. I’m not your toy to fuck over how you please.” My pristine image was breaking. I was trying to play the bigger man. She always brought out the worst in me.

“You’re a parasite. You won’t leave me alone and you feed off of seeing me in pain. So do you want to be that this whole time, for the rest of our miserable lives, or do you want to try doing something more fun?” She pressed her cheek against my side. “You know what you are, Seventeenth. Who you really are. I haven’t forgotten. There has to be a piece of you somewhere inside that still gets it. Some fraction. Everyone has one. And maybe that piece makes you stick around for other reasons.” 

She was adorable, really. Revealing her hand like that. I had suspicions that she still believed that her little pet was salvageable in here. But it sounded oh so delicious to hear it pass through those rosy lips. I almost purred when I spoke. It was just so satisfying. “No, I don’t think I do.” 

Her smile faded. I cherished the way the light faded from her eyes. “Then you’re still a parasite,” she said. “Or warden, or whatever, you still revel in the evil of the world. So let’s make a monster.” 

I grabbed her wrists in my claws and held her tight. “If it grants you happiness, I want to see it obliterated. I won’t work with something like you. It goes against my values.” 

“What values?” She scoffed. “You love death and destruction. You can be the devil if you want to, even.” She tilted her head to the side. “But how are we going to get anything done if we keep playing back and forth like this? You want a story as much as I do, don’t you?” 

I looked at her closely. She wasn’t lying. But I also knew what E was supposed to be. And this wasn’t the scared selfish little girl that I loved to torment and could entertain with her flighty thoughts. No, this was a woman, her heat like nectar when her body was pressed up against mine. She played right into it. She was looking for ways to disarm me. Get me to agree. I was no partner of hers. What did she think I would say to such an idea? She was simply trying to manipulate me. And she wasn’t even that good at it. She was such a stupid little girl. A stupid little girl carefully maneuvering my body with a few shivers of her own. 

“I want a story that breaks you into pieces,” I intoned with a low, deep voice that shook her to her core.

“You can do that if you want. I just want a story.” She didn’t like that part. Oh no, her voice faltered ever so slightly. I could mark her again if the fancy struck me. Right in the middle of this road, on the pavement, her clothes off, her face red and crying as I reminded her what she was meant for. Maybe she needed more reminding that she would always end up on me at the end of the day. 

I twirled her around in my arms and chuckled against her ear. My neck drooped low so she could see those sightless white eyes in the corner of her eyes and feel like screaming. “Alright then. I’ll be your devil, if that’s the game we have to play. But know that you’re no benevolent thing, yourself. Would you really put yourself on the pedestal of a God? You know that you’re nothing like that. Not even a generous human, like you claim to be. A human would care for their fellow man. You’re less than that.” 

“Less than that…” She whispered. “It’s interesting that you say it like that, when you’re infinitely worse. It’s like you hate yourself, too.” 

“I don’t kill millions of people.”

“No, you just rape and torture one person. Only one.” she said against the side of my head. She kissed my jaw. I felt a shiver down my spine. 

“Do you just not care anymore?” I asked in cold curiosity.

“I need to stop caring or I’ll drive myself mad. Maybe I already have. Maybe this is what this is.” She clenched her hands in mine. “I hate you, you know that?” 

“I hate you too,” I said without hesitation. 

Her eyes drifted slowly down. 

“But you don’t want this, do you,” I whispered. “You don’t actually want to be that kind of person, Darkheart. It’s too close to the girl you’re desperately trying not to be.” 

“I’m working with what I have. I have to learn to accept myself.” 

“If you truly believed the things you’re talking about, I wouldn’t be the way I am right now.” I could feel myself growing larger, enveloping her, holding her closer and closer until I threatened to bring her inside me. “But I have free will. And I know I have my will over you. What if I told you to make something for me? Would you do that? Would you give me your powers?” 

“Yes,” she gasped breathlessly. Was she aroused? Was she terrified? Of course the answer is yes, dear reader. You see, I’m simply that good. This is my charge. I know how she ticks. She would agree to anything I said with just the right amount of pushing. 

“Then you’re lying through your teeth.” I let myself give a dark chuckle that reverberated right against her cheek. Now for the final question. “Who are you talking to that you can pretend that you’re alright?” 

“I’m talking to anyone I want to!” She slammed away from me with unexpectedly strong force. I fell back. Damnit. Maintain that quiet dominance. Be stronger than her. Make her understand who her handler is. Remember that stupid cat was right. I’d been too immature. I couldn’t lose myself now, of all times, right as she was bucking away from me like an unbroken wild horse. She needed more rope, and more spurs. But that still required tact. I have to hold myself in, and quietly break her from the inside. This was a little bratty phase of hers that would pass. I’d handle this tactfully. 

Alright, that wasn’t solving my little rage induced problem here. 

Underneath I wanted to throw her in front of the car she’d narrowly missed. I couldn’t believe this little cunt. She pulled away from me. She tried to fight. She couldn’t. She was only going to make things worse for herself when this all finally passed the moment she needed me again. 

And she could see it. She didn’t need to look inside of me to know when she’d made a mistake. She was backing up slowly, step by step, and then she ran. I followed like a faithful dog. She went down easily. For me, at least. Her face fell into the cement with a sharp crack. The blood flowed freely. A lovely lubricant, I’ve found. It made things so much easier when she was docile too. That head wound had her limp and staring with fluttering eyebrows as I showed her what she got for daring to talk back to me. 

“Right here, Darkheart?” I whispered against her ear. “Do you want to make the others see you? We could prove to them just how little you’re worth. No matter how strong you are, you’ll always let me hurt you. Your subconscious understands your position. Why can’t the rest of you follow?” 

This was always the way of things. She didn’t struggle much this time. Perhaps it was the head wound, or perhaps it was the act taking place in the middle of the busy street. Whatever the case, she didn’t seem particularly interested in what we were doing. That was fine. She was still tight enough for me. And she still felt amazingly warm to the touch. I’d always found my own skin insufferably cold. But she made it warm. Hot even. Achingly so. 

When it was over, I sat back on the pavement and watched the late afternoon traffic. She had the smell of gas fumes down well. I inhaled it like a fine perfume, then closed my eyes as I savored the sound of chaos. 

When I opened them, she was gone.

I frowned. I wasn’t done talking. I slowly stood up to my full height, and went looking. 

There used to be few places she could be. But now that she was building, there was no telling where she’d squirrel herself away. The world suddenly seemed needlessly complicated. Was she on the edge of that beach again? No, I found when I brought myself there with a vague searching notion. Nor was she in the recently built forest far to the north of her new shining cess pit of a city. I wandered along new old roads gouged into the countryside that went nowhere, searched those pitiful islands dotting the ocean of sea monsters, and even paused in the Editor cottage. The old void was nauseatingly clean again. I could tell from the front step. But no, nothing. Not a hide nor hair of the stupid girl here either. 

The wood of the front door splintered with the strength of my fist. 

Fine. If she was off sulking, I’d wait until she needed me again. I didn’t need her, she was the one that had made me just because she was stupid enough to think she needed me. She would have to turn up somewhere. In the meantime, though… 

I slammed open the door to the cottage and there was the good boy, just where I thought he’d be. 

Pyrim was leafing through a book on the shaggy brown couch with his paws. He licked the pad of his foot for grip before turning the thin paper, but none of that mattered when he saw me. As soon as he knew what had made that slam, he was off the furniture as a good pet should be and running off with his tail between his legs into one of the bedrooms. 

“Pyrim, is that any way to treat an old friend?” I called after him. My feet were silent against the wood floor. The wallpaper was so easily defaced with a claw. And the marks were so pretty, the way they made the pain chip and the vine décor turn to shreds. It left a nice trail right into that bedroom I had him cornered in. The place was filled with dust motes. I think he might have been the only one to ever use this damned place. And that was frankly adorable. A little cottage for a little kitten. 

“Who said you were allowed up onto the furniture, kitty?” I spoke with an open jaw, tilting my head to the side with a humored gleam. It had the desired effect. He cowered in the back of the room with his eyes as wide as I had ever seen them. I held my large form in the doorway, then slowly closed the gap.

“Remembering what games we played last time?” I asked him as I drew closer. “You broke so easily, and E never even came to you rescue. She won’t now too, you know. Thinks I’ll try to use you as a punching bag even more if it looks like she favors you. She thinks if she doesn’t help you, I’ll let you go sooner. But I know how she thinks. And that just makes me want to hurt you even more. So, do you understand your position now? You have nowhere to run.” 

He looked like he was about to piss himself. 

“Where’s E?” He demanded with a shaky breath. 

“I don’t take orders from you.” 

“It was a question.” 

“Well, your guess is as good as mine. But that doesn’t really matter.” I shrugged. “She’s still not going to help you. But she’ll come back to me eventually. She always needs me.” I laughed. “She’s in no real state to do anything right now, anyways. I did a real number on her this time. I wonder if some of that color leaked out of her brain directly. Do you think something like that would be of any use to you?” 

Pyrim was a little black puff ball of anger and fear. Those bright green eyes were little more than slits. I kind of wanted to hold him. I wondered if he’d try to scratch me. I’d declaw him if he did. 

“Whatever,” I said. “She deserved all of it. Talking like she was some kind of monster and proud of it. She’s really stealing my own image away from me. Lying through her teeth to me.” I narrowed my eyes. “Do you know what she said about me?” 

“I’m not your personal therapist,” He stuttered. 

“Shut up, cat.” I picked him up. He was too terrified to do much more than take it. I stroked his puffed fur down with a claw and sat back on the bed. “You are whatever I want you to be, so be a good kitten, and listen. You see, she had the sheer audacity to say that she wouldn’t care that she was creating more negativity. Said I “couldn’t get any worse”. Honestly. Is she tone deaf? What did she think I would do to her with a comeback like that? Did she think I’d agree with her? That, somehow, she and I would ever work together? She actually thinks we can make up. Make nice. Make friends. That’s the hilarious part. She thinks there’s still good in me.” 

Pyrim could have teleported if he wanted. But I think he forgot. He looked catatonic when I picked him up. Like he was disassociating from the scene entirely. I tugged his tail to bring him back to the present. 

“I’m supposed to be her torturer, and she’s starting to act like there’s a fight to be had. She should know her position. She did before. But now… Did she talk to you? Did she tell you anything?”

Pyrim just shivered. 

“Cat, you’re not much for conversation when you’re too scared. This is just sad.” I put him down onto the bed and poked him with a claw. My neck lengthened and trailed down to his height, my head tilting on a sharp angle as I watched him for any sign of life. There wasn’t much, honestly. I guess I’d fucked him over a little too hard a couple chapters ago.

“She said that she’d talked to you,” I continued. “What did you say?” 

Nothing, again. But I didn’t expect much. 

“I don’t like being ignored,” I muttered. “That little Editor of yours seems to believe that she and I can be partners in this new world. And I find it kind of sick. But she isn’t listening to me either. So I guess it’s war more than anything. I intend to win, you know. And you know what my end goal is?”

Pyrim slowly blinked, and met my eyes with those sweet little green orbs. “You have a goal?” 

“Failure.” I breathed. “I want her total destruction, on every level. I want her with me. Forever.” 

“Why not live without her?” He croaked. 

I pet his little head. It could so easily be crushed under my hand. I could feel his racing heartbeat. 

“I don’t ever want to,” I purred. “I want to be around her, forever. It would bring me the greatest pleasure to be there for the rest of her miserable life. I want to see her die in front of me a cold, sad and decrepit sap of a girl. I want her to live her life feeling the least happiness she can. And I want her to turn to me, fall into me, and accept that I will be the only source of happiness she will ever have. She belongs to me, not the other way around. Her body and soul is always meant to be within me. She’ll be mine, absolutely. I’ll take the rest of her away from the world, and let her float in the cold of nonexistence. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

Pyrim shivered. But even so, he still spoke. And I think I learned where E got her defiance from. 

“You’re living in a fantasy if you think that girl will ever bow down to something like you.” 

“I’m holding your head, Remmy. I could break it if I wanted.”

“Do you want me to just listen and nod, then?” 

“No. I want an excuse to kill you.” 

“You don’t need an excuse,” the poor cat muttered. He looked like he would cry if he could. “I haven’t done anything to you. Just do it.” 

“Oh, Pyrim, don’t say that. You hated me from the very beginning, didn’t you?” 

“I loved that E had made something.” 

“Don’t play games with me. You knew that there was something wrong. There was always something wrong.” I wrinkled where my nose would have been. “I was always off. Lacking. There was nothing inside me. There’s still nothing inside me. And even now, whenever you look me in the eye, that’s the real reason you’re so afraid. Isn’t it, Pyrim? After playing with a psychopath all your life, you still can’t seem to look one in the eye.”

Pyrim slowly turned his head up to look at me. I rubbed the bridge of his nose. His ears lay flat against his skull, so I pulled them back and pinched them between my thumb and forefinger. It felt like velvet. 

“I can look you in the eye,” he growled. “I can see everything you are. And everything you’re not. And if there’s one thing you’re not, it’s able to stand on your own.” 

“Oh, Pyrim.” I ripped his ear with a claw and listened to him scream with a happy sigh. “You were so close.” 

“You… You need E more than anything in the world,” he wheezed. “Your love for her twists your animosity. You’re reactionary. And that’s why you’re going to lose. E’s a smart girl. She’ll grow. She continues to grow. And you’re just a stagnant placeholder for a monster of her subconscious guilt.” I ripped harder and he wailed. 

“You’re saying such pretty little stories you’ve come up with, Remmy. But that’s all they are. It would be so nice for E if that were true, wouldn’t it? Maybe then she’d actually have a chance to build a world. To escape this hell. Because obviously I’m weaker than her. But then, I broke her head in half and raped her in the middle of a busy city street. And she just took it. And even now, you won’t teleport away from me. Because why? Did you forget? Do you like the pain? Tell me, kitty. Tell me why the both of you subject yourselves to me. I’m really curious, if you hate me so much.” 

“Are you kidding me?” He choked. “You’d follow me to the ends of the earth if I tried to run.”

“And E?” 

“E is learning.” 

“E is weak.” 

“E is growing,” he growled. “You aren’t.” 

“I am growing.” 

“Worse.” 

“I am GROWING!” I gripped his head hard enough to bruise. His heart was beating so quickly. He stared up at me. Waiting for me to do it. To show my lack of perfect. To show that I was some kind of child. 

I pet his head. 

“I’m not what you think I am,” I muttered. 

“Then what are you?” 

“The other side of paradise.” 

“You’re nothing more than a parasite pretending.” 

“And you’re just a stuffed animal.” I closed my eyes. “We’re both pretenders. That’s what happens when someone without a pedigree makes the world.” 

“Why are you here,” he muttered. He didn’t bother nursing his ear. I was still watching him. Even with my eyes closed, I could still sense the cat’s shivering presence. “What do you really want from me? To gloat about hurting my friend? To hurt me too? Do you want to kill me?” 

“I want to ask you something. And I want you to tell me the truth.” 

“Fine.” 

“Who is that girl and man that she brought into creation?” 

“Who?” I opened my eyes to glare him down. 

“That girl. And that man. You must know of them.” 

“I… I don’t. I haven’t been following what E’s been doing. I’ve been stuck in here.” 

“Bullshit.” I grabbed him again, this time by the side. His lungs deflated under my touch. The poor kitten was wheezing. “You’ve been talking to her. You should know.” 

“We talked,” he coughed, his whole body shaking as he struggled to get air. “We talked, but I don’t, I don’t know what you’re talking about!” 

I let him breathe, but I still watched him. 

“She’s found a girl and a man. They aren’t anywhere. I can’t find them. And now I can’t find her. She’s building faster than I can keep track of it. But those two were the beginning of this world. She never builds people first. She builds places. Thoughts. Ideals. Philosophies. Those people are important to her, and she blows me off every time I try to talk about them. I don’t like it. You must know something. You know everything.” 

Pyrim numbly shook his head. He didn’t look me in the eye this time. In fact, he looked like he was sobbing, with those buckling shoulders. Pyrim, the poor cat, cowered in the middle of the bed. 

“I don’t know. I swear I don’t know.” 

“You do know. I’ll rip you limb from limb if I have to, Remmy. We’ll see for certain if there’s any cotton still in that body of yours. But you have to tell me.” 

“I don’t. Not about them.” I clenched his side again, and he yowled in pain when my claws dug in. 

“STOP!” He pleaded. “STOP IT.” 

“Tell me what you do know, if you don’t know about them.” 

“I…” he was panting from the pain, so I loosened my grip, and began to stroke him. I almost wished I could hear him purr. But what he said was nearly as good. “I know she’s building people first. That’s all I know… Those cities, they’re placeholders… She wanted to build stories, so that’s what she’s doing. People. With pieces of herself inside them. Little “true” auras, colors from her person that are more real than anything else she’s made before. It’s like… It’s like they’re as real as you or I. I can’t stop her anymore. She’s hurting people. But I can’t get through. So I don’t bother. I haven’t dealt with her. I refuse to. She’s… She’s beyond me, now. All I can do is try to stay in her good graces. And you should try to do the same. She’s getting stronger. It’s possible she’ll be stronger than both of us, in time. Even you. If her powers don’t destroy her first.” 

I leaned in close, looking for any lies. His eyes were blown in fear. 

There was no room for subterfuge. 

I grinned. 

“Good kitty. Was that so hard? We didn’t have to beat around the bush all this time, if you could have just told me that from the beginning.”

“I betrayed her trust…” 

“You sure did. But that’s alright. I won’t blame you. Just her. And you know what she can be like when she’s mad. A whole world exploded because she didn’t like. Imagine what she might do to you.” 

Pyrim was silent. I watched him shrivel up on the bed. It felt good to see him like that. He belonged in that position. His whole body seemed built for torture and subjugation. No wonder I liked him so much. 

I lay down beside him and ran a claw along his spine. 

“You and me Pyrim, we’re obsolete in her eyes. You know that, right?” 

He was silently shaking. 

“We’re always going to be seen as lesser in her eyes, because she made us. Well. I’m not even sure she made me at all at this point. But, regardless. We’re the useless. The toys. The things she thinks she can play with. And soon, more of us will be in the same position. You’re just sitting here while she continues to get worse. I feel like I’m the only one taking things seriously, you know. I’m doing my part in the war effort. You’re just lying here, reading about… What was it you were reading about, anyways?” I paused my hand. He didn’t respond. “Well, no matter. I couldn’t give less of a shit if I tried.”

I closed my eyes, and let my claws stop around his little neck. He was very comfortable. I had to commend E. Pyrim made for a lovely stuffed animal. 

“I don’t like war, Pyrim,” I sighed. “As much as you think I do. What I want isn’t war. That’s what she wants. All I want, is peace.” 

Peace. It was a nice thought. 

I could almost sleep on this bed and think about it. Peace. Her under me, listening to me, living in the misery she was always meant to. Peace, and desolation. Where the only noise I would ever have to hear is her quiet whimpering. 

A man could sleep soundly with dreams like those.


	11. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Muse:   
Au/Ra Panic Room - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Wihk3isqjM  
Love me love me Love me miyashita Yuu - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cqqGOvOGfI

E 

Have you ever wondered what it’s like to have your head cracked open? It’s not just the pain that’s the worst part. It’s the dizziness. There’s this sensation of cold you can’t seem to get rid of. The headache isn’t sharp. It’s dull. And it’s punctuated by the inability to think clearly. A fog comes over your mind and you’re seeing in light and dark instead of colors. The last thing you care about is what someone might be doing to your body. You’re still trying to get your bearings, but you don’t know what’s up or down. You can’t even think straight. They don’t form. Little patches of confusion and terror punctuate a muddled world of darkness and flashing bright light. The dull ache grows and ebbs as your brain starts to spill over the pavement. And that’s when the chill really sets in. 

There used to be a burn, but that’s in the past now. Because now your body is full of tremors that you can’t get rid of no matter how hard you try. In fact, your whole body is convulsing, and the person above you doesn’t seem to care. They’ll do whatever they want to you, seizure or no seizure. Maybe they didn’t even know what a seizure was. You only knew them from stories, yourself. Vague stories. From television shows that are ancient history. But now you’re intimately familiar, and it’s more terrifying than anyone could have ever explained it to you. All of that muddled thinking is made ten fold. You can’t even remember who you are. 

For a moment, you forget you’re even human. You’re just a being in the middle of a torrential downpour. There’s roaring all around you, but you don’t know anymore if that’s the outside noise or the roaring of the blood in your eardrums. The blood that’s now washing away on the gravel road because of that giant crack in your head that was made worse when a claw dug itself into your own brain flesh and used it for support so it could thrust particularly deep. The fingers cup the inside of your skull and spill that fatty tissue out so it resembles the bottom of a pail of strawberries after a hot day out picking in a field, until you’re little more than a twitching corpse on the side of the road foaming at the mouth. 

And then they’re done, and they leave your corpse, and watch the cars go by. Because this had to happen in the middle of a busy intersection, where one wrong mood could cave either of your heads in altogether. No one can see you of course. But they still look ahead. Maybe they think there’s something intrinsically wrong with their world. Maybe they can sense that someone out there is hurting. 

It’s not pleasant, you see, getting your head cracked open. 

I suppose I should have been thankful. Somehow I had enough thought left over to want to be among friends. Somehow, I zapped myself to the apartment I knew that monster would never find. Somehow, I had the will left to want to feel better. Too much self preservation, I think. Not even my subconscious would want me dead. So I healed. But even with my brains back together, that muddling continued, and my eyes refused to open properly. The hairs on my arms stood up as a pair of hands gripped my shoulders, but I didn’t know who they belonged to. I tried to focus, but nothing wanted to show up. I realized, vaguely, that sound was also a problem. Huh.

That pair of hands moved me somewhere. I still couldn’t quite tell where anything was, or what direction I was in, but then there was something soft beneath me. 

There were the vibrations behind me. Someone saying something. I knew I should have tried to listen. Maybe respond, thank them. But I couldn’t hear a thing, and my mouth didn’t move when I told it to. The world was dark. The roaring in my ears had come from the blood pumping too fast. My adrenaline must have been through the roof. But as much as my heart raced, I could feel the darkness ebbing away at me. 

The couch was comfortable. I was swaddled in the soft warmth, listening to my mind’s exhaustion. Tired. I could sleep. I should sleep. And I did. Maybe that wasn’t the best idea for someone with a brain injury. But I’d told myself not to be hurt, after all. I had to be better. I probably just needed rest. Yeah. That was it. Rest. Rest, to get my mind back in order. To make the beating stop. To make the pain go away. To make the madness quiet. To make my body stop shivering. To forget what had just happened. Because I couldn’t get it out of my head. It was still there and in the dark I couldn’t stop seeing a pair of white eyes looking back at me. 

I don’t know how long my rest lasted. Or how my world continued to turn. Everything was on autopilot, I guessed. I hoped so. 

I dreamed. Of a girl with a mother and a father and a little sister. They went to a water park. The two sisters went to the wave pool together. The mother sat down and watched them. The father went to get ice cream cones. The sisters danced in the water like ballerinas. They bowed to each other. They held each other. They laughed. And then the older sister drowned the little one. The mother watched that too. She sat back on the towel and smiled at the father when he returned with one waffle cone. The older sister got out of the water, and he gave it to her. The younger sisters body bobbed in the artificial waves face-down. The family got up. They left the wave pool. The girl’s body was batted from side to side by other families. At night, a staff member fished her out with a hook, placed her in with the rest of them, and wheeled them towards the trash bin. 

I had nightmares. Of that girl staring lifelessly up into the sky, eyes sickly with chlorine. Her hair was brittle. Her body was bloated with water. The stars passed overhead, and then it was morning, and she was still there. And the next week, all the bodies beneath her had started to rot. She did too. She could feel her skin beginning to peel away and putrefy. She couldn’t scream. She stared at the sun that baked her to a crisp instead, until she went blind. Seagulls picked at her fingers. Ripped the nails out of the bed. Fought with each other for her nose. Her lips. The flies lay eggs in her joints. The larva buried themselves inside the soft, putrid flesh. She could feel her body slowly eaten away, dead tissue sloughing away from her bones until the skeleton was all that was left. Two months later, all that was left was the baked-on skin, a hollow shell. 

The corpse cried. 

I woke up wanting to vomit. 

I held onto my own neck. The tremors were still there. But at least I could blink. I was staring at a white ceiling. When I glanced around, I recognized the red walls, exotic plants, and the wide open window looking over the crowded streets fifteen floors below. A television that didn’t work lay dormant mounted on a wall. Across from the couch sat a comfortable armchair of the same style. In between them was a coffee table. Magazines with blurred faces covered the glass top. Unfocused words blurted onto the covers with little meaning. 

There was a conversation in the kitchen. 

“But you could take me with you, couldn’t you? You still have their contact info.” 

“You don’t want to go back there. Trust me. This world she’s made is for the better.” 

“You know what she’s got planned for me. You know it won’t be pretty.” 

“Neither of us know what she has planned for you, because she’s just a human. She’s not omnipotent. She can still change her mind. And you know her. You can talk to her. She’s not just a God, she’s a friend. She wants to be a friend. Maybe she’ll take pity. She cares about you. And me.” 

“A friend, sure, but for how much longer? When is she going to decide to torture me? I don’t want to prostrate myself over some girl that thinks she has control over my life! How can someone care about me that wants to put me through pain? It doesn’t make any damned sense!”

“It’s complicated.” A sigh. “Editors are different, Shift. They’re not perfect people. And we can’t expect that of her. This world isn’t going to be perfect. We aren’t living in a garden of Eden as it is.”

“Easy for you to say. You’re not even a part of this world.”

“I might as well be, now. And I can tell you from experience, this is better than what it could be. We’re special. We should take advantage of that position, instead of looking for reasons to run away. You, especially. She cares about you, more than you know. I was there when she made you. She didn’t just build you out of a stupid whim. She was struggling.” 

“’Special’. You always talk about special. There’s nothing special here. She declares what is and isn’t special, and that declaration is meaningless. What is she, a person, or a God? If she’s a person, then nothing she says holds water or matters. If she’s a god, then she has an obligation. She has the power to make the world good. Why can’t she?” 

“Editors. They’re both. Imagine you were a god, just as you are now. What would you do with that kind of power? Make world peace?” 

“Maybe I would.” 

The sound of another, deeper sigh. “Alright. So you go back to my world with the Dimensional Transporter. Break through time and space just so you can find a world that E didn’t make, one you have no knowledge of or the ability navigate. Not to mention, this this is calibrated to have you appear in right in the middle of the Company’s dimensional landing pad. And this thing doesn’t even work unless they want me back in the first place. And then what? Do you start working for the Company too? Do you think they would treat you as a person, or as yet another specimen for them to poke and prod? Because I can tell you right now, I’m an example of what they do to their employees. Imagine what they might do to a creation of an Editor like yourself.”

“Then I…”

“Or do you try to run? Because they’ll catch you. They’ll always catch you. You came directly from E’s world, and they’re not about to let something like that slip through their fingers. Not only that, but you yourself are one of her favorites. You’re the crown jewel. No, don’t fight that, you were the first thing she made in the new world. And she’s hiding you from the monster that did that to her. Don’t pretend she doesn’t care about you. She wants you safe.” 

“She wants me safe until she can use me. And I could run. They wouldn’t catch me. You know I’m good at that.” 

“You would never stay running forever.” 

“Yes I could.” 

“Now you’re sounding like a child.” 

“Well, I AM a child! How old am I? Am I seventeen, or am I a couple months old? I’m just an image she made up not even that long ago! This body isn’t even my own. It’s whatever she thought was interesting at the time. I’m just a whim. And I still don’t even know who I am! What the hell am I? Am I human? Are these eyes human? Is any part of me real? I can breathe and eat and think and yet I keep second guessing what part of myself is my own. Is any part of me myself?” 

“I know it’s hard.”

“No you don’t. You don’t have an Editor.”

“That’s up for debate. Regardless, she’s giving you time to learn about yourself. You have choice. Free will. Otherwise we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“Is she really giving me time? Or is she working as fast as she can to build this world so she can shove me into it? Do I have free will? Or has she made me to suffer? Isn’t this whole conversation just a manifestation of torture?”

“Shift. You’re just looking for things to be upset at now, picking at the seams. Do you really think that? After how she showed up, do you think that she’s picking the easy and entertaining way through this, that she’s even thinking things through? Because from where I’m standing, her-self hatred has led her down the worst possible path an Editor could go through. She isn’t that insidious.”

“She… She could just kill that thing, if she wanted. She could be a masochist.” 

“She can’t, and you know that. She can’t, as much as you can’t help but want to run away from this. It’s in her nature.” 

“I… You would too. If you were told you were going to be tortured in a story for the benefit of a god.”

“Maybe I would. But maybe I wouldn’t, if I knew the alternative. You have to understand that what you’re suggesting is stupid. There’s nowhere to run to. You can have your story you still don’t know yet, or you could teleport yourself right into the middle of a den of snakes. You could have a God here that will listen to you, or you could make your demise set in stone. You don’t even know what she’s planning for you yet. You have a chance. You could live without a fractured mind.” 

“You don’t get it, that’s the problem! I don’t know what it’s going to be. I have no idea what she’ll do to me. We’re both just stuck here, hiding from that fucking monster, waiting for E to finish the building up a world so our stories can start. And I won’t even remember ANY of this. I’m stuck in this limbo just waiting, tearing my hair out and listening to the sound of cities being built. The minute, the very minute she’s done, I’m gone. I’m pushed into some story and I’ll forget you. I’ll have to suffer, because that’s what she wants. And I can’t do anything about it. I can’t even think about it too hard. I just… I just…” The words began to break down, and the echoes of sobs filled the kitchen. 

I slowly sat up and rubbed my temples. The tears were gathering in my eyes. That was a strong emotion. I hadn’t felt something like that from a character for a long time. 

“Shift,” Damien muttered. “I know it’s frightening. I don’t want you to have to be subjected to the Editor’s whims, either. But you weren’t supposed to be awake in the first place. You can cherish our time together for now, but this isn’t the permanent solution here. You and I both will eventually have roles to play. I don’t know what mine will be, either. But I can’t just stop functioning and let the fear get to me. She’s not impossible to reason with.” 

“I don’t want to be awake at all! I wished I was never brought into existence! Not if I have to deal with what’s to come!”

“Shift?” I stood in the doorway. The purple eyed girl jerked up from where she’d been hunched against the counter. She stared at me, then wiped her tears away with shaky hands. One gulp later, and she’d hunkered down on the fear welling up inside her. 

“How are you feeling?” She muttered. Damien’s hand was poised over the girls’ shoulder, the other one still holding onto the knife he’d been chopping onions with. The saucepan on the old stovetop was already steaming from the garlic and oil.

“That’s a hard question to answer,” I said. I moved closer. She backed away out of reflex. “Shift, I’m sorry.” 

“No, it’s fine.” She took another step back. She didn’t want to be near me. And no wonder. Something was cracking inside me, I think. Something felt broken. Very broken. The world was still spinning just a little bit. But I didn’t want to listen to that right now. Shift was hurting. “I just… I let things get the better of me.” Her eyes flicked to the open maw of the window. “It’s fine.” 

“It’s not fine,” Damien sighed. He went back to chopping the onions. “You shouldn’t have told her about any of this in the first place, E. You’ve made a character with a complex.” 

I smiled. “And do what,” I asked him. “Erase her memories? Make a different person out of her?” 

He flinched.

I held out a hand to Shift. Inside her soul was a raging torrent. I could feel how she fought back against my gentle attempts to appeal to her. She had such a strong will. She was exactly what I wanted from a person. She tried. She was alive. There was a strength within her that was so abnormal, so beautiful and harsh and fire. If she’d put that strength towards something more than running, she could accomplish anything. That was the tragedy. Was that my fault too? I guess so. 

“Stop that,” she muttered. “You’re looking through my mind. I can feel it.” 

“I’m not changing anything. I’m just standing here.” 

“Why don’t you? You could just change my mind to whatever you want. I’m your doll. I’m meaningless.” 

“Shift, I’m not going to hurt you.” I pulled her into my arms. Her body was stiff. She didn’t react. “I’m sorry. I haven’t been clear. I’ve just neglected you.” 

“I don’t like this,” she muttered into my shoulder.

“It’s hard to explain something like this. I don’t think I have the words, or the mind to do it. I don’t want you to die. I don’t want you to think I’ll throw you to the wolves for my own enjoyment. Look at me. See my face.” 

She pulled away to look at the tears streaming down my cheeks. 

“Why the hell are you crying?”

“Negativity and sadness and despair from the world are what turned the tips of my hair dark. It’s what made that monster. I can’t help but feel what my creations feel.” 

She gritted her teeth. “Then why do you do this to yourself?” 

“That’s a hard question to answer.” I let her go as soon as I knew she wasn’t going to jump out the window. She was grateful. “I’ve stopped trying to fight it, because no matter how I try to complete the puzzle it never makes any sense. That smells good, Damien.” 

“It’s just the beginning of spaghetti sauce,” he said softly. “Onions.” 

“I like onions.” 

Shift pressed her forehead against my shoulder. “I don’t… I don’t want to suffer.” 

“I know.” 

“Don’t make me suffer.” 

“Stories are boring without conflict.” 

“Why are you such a sadist?” 

“I wish I knew.” I stroked her hair. “I’m sorry.” 

“Sorry won’t be good enough when I come knocking angry at what you’ve done to my life,” she muttered. 

“When that time comes, I’ll accept it. Whatever it is.” 

“That thing did a number on you,” Damien muttered.

I turned abruptly to Damien and dropped my hands. “I pushed him.”

“You shouldn’t do that, then. Not if it turns out like this. You know what he’s capable of.” He narrowed his eyes on the onions. My heart was still racing. I felt dirty. I shouldn’t have been in the kitchen. “What did he do to you?” 

“I fixed my own wounds. I would prefer if we didn’t talk about it.”

Damien gritted his teeth. “It looked bad.” 

“It was bad.”

Damien went quiet. His hands were paused over the onions. Shaking a little. I wonder if he could hear it in my voice. I wondered if I could hide it better. 

“E.”

“Hm?” 

“It looked really, really bad.” 

“It was.” 

“You…” 

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Normally I’d let this pass. But this world is based on your mental stability.” He turned to me. “You need to snap out of it. Now. Or you might very well kill us all.” 

I wiped the pesky tears from my eyes, and smiled. Big, fat ugly sobs were threatening. I pushed them back. “I’ll be okay, Damien. It’s Shift’s emotions. She’s closer to me than anyone else I’ve made. They make it a little harder to focus.” 

I knew he wouldn’t believe me. But at least he dropped it. His teeth were gritted, but he didn’t say anything more on the subject.

Finally, I was able to truly breathe. I’d been holding it in for a while. I rolled on my heels, and tried to let those deep gulps of air take me somewhere calmer. One, two, three, four. Breathe. One, two, three, four. Breathe. I needed to forget. I needed to move on. That was hard to do. I knew he’d come back eventually, and the same things would happen again. I didn’t like my dream very much. 

“He wants to know where you are,” I said to Damien. “He’s angry. He thinks that I’m planning something.” 

“Are you?” Damien asked. He shook the saucepan, carefully worked the onions in the pot with his spatula, then added the canned tomato sauce. “You’re working hard to hide us. I appreciate that. But what do you plan to do with us? We can’t just stay here forever. That would be boring to you.” 

“Yes. As soon as the basic geography is done, I’m going to implement the rest of it.” I watched Shift prowl through the kitchen. She skulked between the two of us awkwardly, constantly glancing at me with a tense neck and fearful eyes. There wasn’t anything left to say, but she wasn’t happy with the outcome. “I want to tell a story,” I told Damien. “I know what part Shift will play, but would you like to be a part of it?” 

“It depends on what I’m doing. I wouldn’t like to suffer either, you know. But staying in this apartment for the rest of my life doesn’t seem like much fun either.” 

One, two, three, four. Breathe. I closed my eyes, and could see the eyes baking in the sun. I opened them again, and flexed my fingers. 

“Would you like to be a part of the Company again?” 

“No.” He was quick. And that was to be expected, I supposed. 

“What if you got to call the shots?” I asked him. “You could lead it.” 

“No.” 

“Okay.” I smiled. “I know it sounds bad, but-”

“I don’t know what kind of logic you like to use, but I know you’re aware of what they did to me. I don’t want anything to do with any version of them again.” 

I fell back against the counter, and watched Shift venture to the living room. Her eyes kept flitting to the window, but she wasn’t seriously thinking of jumping this time. Still, though, Damien had been right. Her aura fluctuated intensely. She shouldn’t have known. It was like ripping off a bandage, and I’d been painstakingly slow. She paused over the magazines, held one up with a frown, then pushed it back against the glass top of the table looked for a way to turn on the television. 

“I am looking for the things that make me happy,” I said. “It’s hard to find things like that when I’ve never really experienced it before being an Editor. And after I became one, things became muddled. But I think I want to celebrate what I might have loved. I loved Jennifer.” 

Damien paused.

“You’re going to remake Jennifer?” 

“I could make a copy. It wouldn’t be hard. She’s in some bubble I made her ages ago, an exact copy of her world but with the Company’s nonexistence. I think she’s working as a professor now. She’s always enthusiastic about her job.” 

“That’s a bastardization of what she stands for.” 

“I don’t think morals matter much, anymore.” 

“And that’s a dangerous road.” He was forming the meatballs with his hands now, adding them to the sheet tray. The sizzling from the saucepan caused a delicious scent in the kitchen. “I know what I said, before. And maybe it still holds true. But gratuitous suffering might end up bland for you, in the end. And abusing the image of a woman best left to rest…” Nothing more needed to be said. “So you remake the Company. And put me back into torture. What was the point of me staying here, then?” 

“You can be whatever you want, Damien. I’m not about to make the exact same Company with the exact same problems. You could keep your memories, if you want. You’d have Morgan, a finished one, you’d do as you pleased. Maybe I’m wrong to suggest you lead something like that.”

“Morgan was a false thing from a false life.” 

“Do you really think that? After living so many lives and having all of their memories in your head, can you truly find yourself coming to hate any of them? Maybe they aren’t real in the conventional sense. But that Damien I met on the beach was afraid. He felt as real as anything in that moment. And I know you’re more than the one Damien with the “real” life. You have all of them. You know what each of them feel.” 

He put the meatballs into the oven, and after a quiet pause, finally spoke. 

“So I’m not a leader, then. What am I?”

“I could give you reign to travel my world. You could choose what you wanted to do. But in order to keep from drawing attention from unwanted ignorant eyes, you’d need a reason or that kind of power. How could you be able to transcend borders in the way you might want to do without some kind of card to prove you belonged there? The Company is an antagonist. That’s what it’s always been. A terrifying, mysterious conglomerate with confusion attached to it and clear world domination themes. It would be the one place you wouldn’t be able to travel through if you weren’t a part of them. But with a pass like that, well, they always claimed they had positions in every seat of power in the world. You’d be able to do what you liked. And what better to make as the villain for a world like mine?” I smiled faintly. 

Damien didn’t say anything again. He was thinking. I could see the way his mind worked. They rolled over ideas like a tongue worked over hard candy. He found multiple ways to respond, but he never picked one of them until he’d exhausted all of his options. Even now, I knew what he wanted to say. The moral quandaries of raising the dead were least of his problems. He seemed to fall further and further into thought, until his eyes settled on the form of Shift huddled in the armchair, and he finally spoke. 

“It’s not very original, is it?” 

I shrugged. “Perhaps not. It’s a faceless entity that I want as my villain. I need it as a backdrop for the people I care about. And this woman, this Jennifer, I wasn’t going to make her a carbon copy. I won’t give her past memories. I can’t do that to her.” 

“You’re still walking dangerous waters.” 

“I’m not defacing Jennifer. She isn’t even dead. And I won’t be touching her. Or having any of the past memories that would harm this version of her.”

“If I can’t convince you that’s wrong, then I guess there’s no stopping you.” He closed his eyes. “I just want to make it clear that in asking me to rejoin your version of the Company, you are making me out to be the villain in your story. You’re beating around the bush, but that’s what you’re saying, right?” 

“You’re a member on paper, nothing more. I am giving you free reign to explore my world. To appraise it, if you will. Morgan will be your guard.”

“Who are the heroes in this world, if I am the villain?”

I glanced over at Shift. She was watching the static on the television. There was, as of yet, no television to watch. Eventually, she turned off the remote, picked up a magazine, and began to flip through the pages of unintelligible articles. 

“She’s not going to make a good protagonist,” he murmured. 

“A protagonist that survives is the best protagonist I can ask for. The Seventeenth won’t be able to touch her. I’ll make her strong. Immortal if I have to. Whatever it takes for her to live a long life. A life of conflict, but a long life nonetheless.” 

“You’ll make her fight me?” 

I shook my head. “No. The Company, they’re just a fraction of what I want to build. The world will be filled with people that intersect and live and die. Normal, not good, not bad, with the same strong aura that she had. She’ll be the centerpiece of it all. She’s the one that will truly experience it. I already have the position prepared for her, now. I can send her on her way.” 

“By suffering.” His expression dropped.

I fixed the man with a look. “Suffering is a part of the human condition. But it’s not just suffering. You and her, that’s all you focus on. The bad parts. What ever happened to a god having a plan for someone? And half of it is her decision to begin with. She has free will. She could choose to not to something. She could choose to run.” 

“Tell me you haven’t framed her story to make her usual options lead her further down the road to violence torture.”

“Not… All of them. You can’t expect me to NOT jump on such an opportunity. But a story of gratuitous suffering is a boring one too, you know.” I frowned. “Well, I’ve already terraformed the rest of the world. There are villages and cities being built as we speak. It won’t be much longer. And then what she’s feeling now will be over.” I glanced over at the girl. She was glassy eyed now. “Maybe sooner, rather than later.” 

“What is the story you’re trying to tell, then?” 

I pressed a finger to my lips. “Spoilers.” 

He paused. 

I sighed. “It’s multifaceted. “I just want to chase that feeling inside them. There’s a tug there. It’s like I’m suffering too. There’s something… Compelling.” 

“Is that why you’re doing all this? To hurt yourself?” 

I bit my lip. “I’m following a feeling. That’s all. You know, you’re sounding more and more like Pyrim by the day.” 

“I’m not about to tell you to stop. But look at yourself for a second. Really see what you’ve become in what you’re doing. Feel free to keep going after you’ve taken a gander, but remind yourself of the path you’re on once in a while.” 

“You’re the one who told me to embrace it.” 

“Do it. But do it wisely.” He gritted his teeth, then leaned back against the counter. “How is Pyrim, anyways?” 

I grimaced. “The Seventeenth’s found him again.” 

“And you’re not going to save him?” 

“I can’t. If I tried, that thing would just hurt him harder.” There pain radiated up my spine. If I felt hard enough for the cat, there was a familiar sensation of claw marks digging into my skin. I chose to let it go. 

“Hide your cat, if you’re so afraid for him.” 

“He doesn’t want me to.” I rubbed my arm, and looked down at the floor. “Pyrim doesn’t want to listen to me anymore. And I don’t want to overwrite free will. As much as this hurts him, I want to respect his decisions.” There was the terror seeping down my spine. He was so scared. Whatever that monster was doing to him left me breathless. But I couldn’t feel it. He told me not to. He told me to let him be. I had to respect it. 

“That sounds like an excuse.” 

“You could talk to him.” 

“I don’t think he’d want to talk to me.” The man grimaced. “Besides, you’re just delaying the inevitable, aren’t you?” 

“And what’s what?” I leaned forward. 

“Putting us into our stories. Let it begin for us, if you’re so set on it. We can’t stop you. As much as I’d like to stay living in limbo while you continue to perfect your world, I’d rather just go off somewhere. I want peace.” 

“You’ll get what you want.” 

“Shift wants peace too.” 

“Choose what side you want to be on!” I snapped. I pushed forward until I was inches away from the man, looking up at his confident chin and chilling eyes. He was little better than Dahlia when all was said and done. “Do you want me to do what I want, or do you want me to make world peace like some kind of idealistic child?” 

“Can’t you find a happy medium?” He smiled wryly. 

I wrinkled my nose, then stepped back to let him stir the pot. “No.”

“Then stop asking for advice from every man you find.” 

“I’m not!” 

“It seems like you are. Do what you want to do. Take Shift, and go.” 

“I could give her more time.” 

“To do what, suffer? Take her away, wipe her memories, do whatever else you want to do with her. Just…” He paused over the saucepan. “Just don’t hurt her too badly. That’s all I ask. Don’t break her.”

“Half of her story is her decision, Damien.” 

“That’s what I’m afraid of. She’s a coward. She’ll always be a coward. And that’s because you made her that way.” 

“Maybe this world needs more cowards. Cowards live to fight another day.” 

“Cowards live in guilt because they can never die a hero.” 

I looked at his hands. He was gripping the spatula tightly. White knuckled. The tips of his fingers were shaking. I looked up. He was waiting for an answer. And I didn’t have any to give him. 

I bowed my head. “I’ll take her then. And you too, when you’re ready.” 

“Just give me time to enjoy my dinner first. That’s all I ask.” 

“You could stay here.”

“This place doesn’t feel real. I don’t like it. I’d rather be somewhere that isn’t limbo.” 

“I understand.” I paused for a moment, then tried to place a hand on his shoulder. He looked to it, then to me. 

“Go to her,” he muttered. “Get it over with.” I let go, took a couple awkward steps back, then disappeared into the living room.

Shift watched me approach. Her eyes flicked back and forth again, window, to me, to the window again. 

1, 2, 3, 4, breathe. 

“Do you think you’re ready?” I asked her. 

“Now?” She was pale. 

“Do you want to continue living in fear here?” 

She dropped her eyes to the coffee table. 

“I don’t want to die.” 

“You won’t die.”

“I don’t know if you’re telling the truth.” She looked up to me. Defiant purple eyes. For someone so cowardly, she was filled with bravado. 

“Why don’t we make a promise, you and I?” I sat down on the arm of the chair, then gently drew a hand back in that ragged black hair. 

“What kind of promise?” 

“When all is said and done, you’ll come back to me.”

She bit her lip. 

“What does that mean?” 

“I’ll keep you safe. When things are over, you’ll find peace. I’ll make sure of it. You’ll be alive, and at peace. You’ll be with me, if you want. If not, we’ll find another place for you. But you’ll be safe.” 

Her shoulders relaxed as I stroked through the knots in the unruly strands. Her eyes began to close, and her body tilted closer to mine. She breathed out slowly. 1, 2, 3, 4. 

“The world is ending,” she murmured. 

I paused my hand. “What was that?”

“That sounds nice.” She blinked at me. “Are you alright? You’re pale.” 

“I’m fine. Maybe I misheard.” I drew my hand back and looked hard at the girl. There was no record of it in her memory. But I hadn’t imagined it, had I? I couldn’t have. “Do we have a deal, then?” 

“Can I trust a deal like that?” 

“Treat it as a deal with the Devil, if you want.” I held out my hand.

“I don’t know what that means.” 

“You will.” She looked at it, at the magazines, at the kitchen, at the rest of this godforsaken apartment, then she took my hand tentatively, and managed a small smile. 

“I’ll expect you to make good on this, E.”

“I will.” I pulled her back into my arms. “I promise. I really do.” 

“I think… I think I’m ready to go, then.” 

“You sure? You don’t want to stay for meatballs?” 

“Damien is a terrible cook anyways,” she laughed breathily. “I don’t think I could sit through another day of his cooking. Or those magazines. Or the television. The faceless people across the street. No, I think, I think I’m good to go.” 

“Okay. I’ll see you on the other side. I’ll make sure the Seventeenth doesn’t touch you.” I kissed her forehead. She brushed a hand against my cheek, smiled sadly, and then disappeared. 

Damien burned his hand on the pan in the kitchen.


	12. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Creator: Part 2 Incoming. 
> 
> Muse: Get Scared - Drown: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILOn8dZ0lTo  
Heathers - Dead Girl Walking Reprise: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIHPNqYiPSM

THE SEVENTEENTH 

“What are you doing today?” I’d ask her. 

“I’m building,” she’d say. 

“And what are you doing today?” I’d ask her the next day. And again. And again.

“I’m building. I’m working on something. I’m trying to get away from you. I’m plotting. I’m going behind your back.” I stopped listening. All of them were lies, after all. 

I’m sure you understand the kind of person I’m trying to explain here. We all know the type. It’s the kind that holds far too many secrets for their own good. They build and build and build and it all ends up blowing up in their faces in the end. 

She had that kind of face, you know. The one with the shifty eyes, those lips with the faint curve of a smile constantly on her lips. Like at any moment she was going to blurt out a laugh at my expense because she knows something I don’t. And no matter what I do, I couldn’t make her talk. No amount of torture, rape, subjugation of her estranged pet cat, will make her spill what stupid thing she thinks she has over me. 

Because, the reality was, she didn’t have shit. Right? Am I right? She’s absolutely bullshitting me. There’s nothing for her to pull over me. She’s just a bitch. A bitch that seems to think what she’s turned me into is funny, in some way. Look at my body. It’s hilarious. A twisted caricature. I’m a real joke. Hear me laugh. Ha. 

Sometimes I wish I could truly kill her. 

I never left her alone. She didn’t deserve to be alone. She deserved to never feel a moment’s peace. That extra pinch of nervousness was all that kept me going some days. Just knowing that she was always looking over her shoulder and waiting for me to do something to her, that was worth even more than taking what was mine. Why fuck her, when I could make her live in constant terror? 

It’s strange what can break a person down. After all those assaults, those weeks and months of following her around, it was the tender touch of me removing her color that made her snap. 

Her body hitched backward when I raised my hand. She twisted around, stumbling away faster than her legs could take as her eyes went wide with fear. It was stupid of her to run like that. She was in pain. She needed me. She always needs me. Why was she acting like this?

“I need to help you with that,” I muttered. 

“No, you don’t. Stop touching me.” 

“This isn’t the time to be playing these games. You need me right now. I’m doing my job.” But she kept backing up as I came closer. Her hackles were raised. Everything about her seemed to scream that she was willing to fight me. There were tears streaming down her eyes, but her teeth were clenched in anger. The pain of the color must have been overwhelming. She needed me. She did.

“Don’t,” she warned. “Just leave me alone. Just for a few minutes. Peace.” 

“You’re in pain.” 

“And don’t you like it when I’m in pain? You never say when you’re going to do it. You just do it. I don’t – I don’t like it.” 

I narrowed my eyes. “You don’t get to decide when I touch you, Darkheart.” I took another step forward, purposeful this time. She was ever the fighter with her raised fists and braced legs. I kept waiting for it to run its course, and yet it never did. It was annoying. “Stay still. This is my job.” 

She wrinkled her nose, and her eyes were still wide as I began to rub away the excess energy. A shiver went up her spine. That was it. That beautiful reaction. Once again, I couldn’t help myself. I pulled her closer when I’d finished what was needed, and decided to take more than she was willing to give again. It was so easy to pull her back by her hair, see the defiance in her eyes, and know that for the moments I’d be inside her, I’d be able to wipe that off of her face and replace it with fear, and perhaps arousal. 

I took her in her newly minted northern forest. We had privacy this time, she must have been thankful for that. I wasn’t as rough as I could have been. Sometimes that felt worse for her. When she felt it was loving, like there was some tiny chance I might still want something good for her, those were the times she cried the most. When I kissed her, when I held her, when we held hands, when I pressed my forehead against hers and felt her pulse in her wrist, those were the times I knew how she must have hated me. These would have been times she would have cherished with anyone else. In another life, she would be among friends, lovers, people who touched her in ways she liked. That was nothing but fantasy now. She had to settle for me. It was a good consolation prize, it seemed. I didn’t tell her to rock back against me the way that she did, or finish around my cock. 

Hatred, love, they’re two sides of the same coin. There is nothing more than an arbitrary line created by the human psyche in order to mitigate the kind of relationship we have. Because these relationships are the kind that burn people up and turn them into dust. It’s torture of the worst kind. You’ll never make up your mind. I still find myself struggling to keep her conscious when I thrust into her. I kept that urge to choke her until she breathed her last. 

She would look so pretty dead. 

But I loved those other moments, too. I love when I held her. I loved when I could feel her heartbeat up against mine. When her eyes were closed and she was fighting against nightmares I’d made just for her. Those were the fleeting moments of love. Those were the mirages I hated. 

I can hear the metal chains clinking with every gentle kiss to her shivering neck. So maybe I couldn’t make it without her. Maybe that was the only reason her blood wasn’t on my hands just yet. But that didn’t matter. Unlike her, I wouldn’t let that keep me imprisoned. I had will. I chose to do what I do to her. She didn’t get the option. 

Around us, touch after touch, walk after walk, the seasons changed. The time changed. Years progressed in what felt like months. She and I grew alongside each other into gangly adults that felt like children. The world progressed into an incomprehensible modern mess. She told me this universe was like her own. The same sun, the same planets, the same life. All I saw of it was disease and stupidity. People suffering as she always liked. Cars and pollution and crying babies. None of the skyscrapers or computers or people living their daily, boring lives mattered to me. All of it was noise in comparison to her true intentions.

She was working on a story I couldn’t see. I could travel just as she could, teleport wherever I pleased, but I couldn’t seem to find it. This world was meaningless to me, and I knew it was meaningless to her. She hadn’t cared about her old world. What did she gain by copying the past? An attempt to rectify the unoriginality imprinted on her back? She could make the Company, and I wouldn’t have cared. That old medieval world hadn’t been particularly interesting. But this was just as empty, just as boring, just as inert. It wasn’t special. And that made me anxious. 

No, anxious was the wrong word. Angry? Disappointed? I can’t describe it. Maybe you know what I mean already. It’s the kind of feeling that has you looking over the person’s shoulder with your arms crossed, waiting for them to pull a prank that you know won’t be funny, nor will it be in any way successful. We play this game for how long now? 

And nothing ever changes. This time she was so obvious in her lack of care for the world around her. She never left my side, dancing around buildings, building trees and mountains and cities and countries and there wasn’t a scrap of creativity. Just the same negativity that dragged me down the way she wanted. 

I tried pinning her against a tree outside a park once. I tried slamming her head back. I tried kissing her. I kept kissing her. I forgot why I was kissing her. I got lost in myself, and got nowhere closer to solving this pressing problem that I knew just a moment ago had meant quite a bit to me. But that didn’t matter now. 

Her lips were soft. Her breath was shaky. Her hands were clutched against my chest. I was kissing her, and it was right. It was perfect. I was holding her by the shoulders and truly feeling, truly connecting to her in a way that being inside her could never accomplish. Fleeting moments like these, I wondered if they were the meaning of live. The true one, not the one she tried to give me.

When I pulled away, I pressed my face into the crook of her neck. Even I was breathless. That didn’t usually happen. But her hands were on my waist. Her forehead rested against my chest. 

“Tell me your plans, Darkheart. Please,” I whispered. “I know you’re hiding something. It’s been so long. Can’t you forgive me? Just tell me what it is you’re building. I want to be a part of your life.” I kept my face hidden in her neck. If she just heard my voice, looked for the pain and guilt that wasn’t there, maybe she’d take pity. It had certainly worked before. After all, she still thought there was goodness left. It was sweet of her. Naïve, stupid, and sweet. Cloying. 

Her shoulders slowly deflated as she digested what I’d said. For a moment, I thought it had worked. 

“No. You monster.” I pulled away to look at her. She was shivering. Her eyes were downcast at first, but her nose was drawn back in a snarl. She looked up to me, disgusted with herself. There were tears in her eyes. Eyes that glowed with red, fiery anger. And then she drew her hand back, and threw a punch with all her weight into my chest. 

The world shifted. Trees lurched, the wind blew hard, and rocks began to fall from one side of the wood to the other. 

I went down coughing. She fell too, her eyes haunted as she processed what she’d just done. She better have, at least. She’d just hit me. Full on. An actual punch. She was dead. 

“What is wrong with you?” I slowly arched back up onto my two feet, standing to my full height and lilting my head to the side at an unnatural angle. 

She pressed up against the tree that was slanted at an abnormal angle. In front of her the pine needles were beginning to vibrate against the earth. Under our feet the tectonic plates shifted and crashes against each other. The ground hissed as it let out steam. The rumbling of the crust caused several flocks of birds to screech as they flew off. And she, she was a wild animal with her leg caught in a trap. The world was pounding at the same speed as her heart. I wanted to see what it looked like out in the open air. It would be wet. Warm. Easily crushed. 

“Stay back!” She snarled. “I’m warning you!” Red eyes again. The sheer audacity. 

“Darkheart, that doesn’t work on me.” I took a leisurely step forward. She wouldn’t run. She never ran. My little Darkheart was no coward. She was scared, but she would lower those fists. She would do as she was told. She always did the right thing, in the end. It was an adorable bluff. A meaningless, cute, fluffy little bluff. That couldn’t be anger. She didn’t have the bravado for fury of that caliber. My Darkheart didn’t have the confidence. She hated herself. She would see sense, and realize against that violence is not her strong suit.

“You won’t touch me,” she growled. “I won’t let you touch me.”

“You don’t tell me what to do.” Another step. The world was shaking. The lurch had begun to twist in the other direction. 

Then she closed the space for me as she slammed right into my form. Her hand moved back in an arc, then in the same second pushed forward into a punch that resonated through my thin, spindly stomach.

Crunch, went a tree as it snapped into pieces. 

That was a good one, too. She had a good arm. She tried for another hit, but she’d lost her chance at surprise. I ducked out of the way and hid inside her shadow. As she looked around for me, I grabbed her from behind and pulled her arms back tight until her shoulders popped. 

“You should know the consequences,” I hissed against her ear. Leaves shook. Boulders cracked. I grabbed the arm that had landed that punch, and with a quick twist broke it in two. 

The scream resonated through the entire forest. 

She didn’t try to punch me after that. 

That didn’t change what she had done. 

That wasn’t to say that she’d learned her lesson. 

On the contrary. 

We were at war. 

As I fingered the chess piece in front of me while waiting for her move, I recognized the way that her shoulders were hunched. Her eyes kept flicking to me as she decided her next move, looking up from behind her eyelids. I recognized a hateful look when I saw them. There was already another pair watching me with ones just like it.

Across from us, Pyrim’s tail was flicking back and forth. 

“Cats shouldn’t be allowed on the couch,” I remarked. He flinched. It’s always far too easy with him. For someone that came first, he always acted like the younger, punchable brother. 

“He isn’t really a cat,” E said. “He can do what he wants.” She moved her queen. A stupid move. She could have easily used her knight. It was right there for her, a pawn for the taking. Of course, then I’d take that knight with the rook that she probably hadn’t even noticed yet. 

“He looks like a cat from here. And cat hair is terrible for upholstery.” I moved my other pawn. Perhaps she’d be more attracted to one that was closer to my king. “What’s happening in the world today, Darkheart?” 

“The world is doing its thing, Seventeenth. Same as every other time you ask me. And I’m getting very tired of you asking me.” She looked to me with a glare. A dare. I raised an eyebrow. 

“If you keep frowning, your face will stay that way.”

“Good.” 

“It’s fine. I love it when you look like you hate what I’m doing to you. Makes it all the more fun when you come for me.” 

“You’re disgusting.” She moved her own pawn forward. I quickly took it with the bishop. She had no way of taking my piece, so it was a safe bet. I’d move it back next turn, unless she did something stupid again. She probably would. She wasn’t very good at this game. 

“I’m just telling the truth. Unlike you. I wonder if you get off on lying as much as you get off on pain and misery. Have you made yourself a whip for self-flagellation yet? Oh, never mind. I forgot. That’s my job. So tell me, Darkheart. What’s going on in the world right now?” 

She was truly an infuriating creature. I don’t know how I put up with her. You should be thanking me for dealing with this insufferable cunt. You would have probably left the building by now. Most would have. I’m being a saint, doing this volunteer work. Look at the way she’s looking at me right now. Do you see those eyes? Red. As if she wasn’t even herself anymore. And the way she’s watching my hands like she’d ready to defend against an attack? Annoying. Maybe it’s because the cat is in the room right now, but apparently she thinks that means she can act like a twat in front of me.

“Things.” See what I mean? Twat. Completely. 

“What “things?”” I growled. 

She bit her lip. 

“You’ll never let it go, will you?” 

“No.” 

“No matter what I do?” 

“No.” 

“Fine. Shift’s story is being put through its paces. Things are continuing to move. The story has already happened.” She moved up another pawn. I perked up. 

“Excuse me?”

“The girl you saw before. Her story is being played out. I’ve been working on it, and now I’m watching it unfold. I made the world around her, and her story. Well it did originally. Now there are countless others.” 

“I don’t see this story anywhere.”

“It transcends time and space.” 

I inclined my head towards her until my neck had extended level with her. 

“There is more to this world?” The venom dripped in my voice. Even Pyrim seemed curious. His tail had stopped flicking, and his ears were forward. E kept things close to her chest these days. Perhaps she thought I could torture it out of the little kit. She would be right. It was easy. He was pitiful. 

The girl rolled her shoulders in a shrug. She played with the piece she’d just moved, and that subtle smirk I hated played at the edges of her mouth. 

“Did you really think I would be boring enough to have everything in this world? This world isn’t big enough for me. Not even this universe.” 

“E,” Pyrim moved to his feet. “You didn’t… You didn’t open more dimensions, did you?” 

“I did what I had to do, to keep this one as far away from my creations as possible. Do you have any idea what he would have done if he had seen the things I’ve made?” 

I threw her king piece onto the ground. My hackles raised as she made it appear back in place with a snap of her fingers. I’d add more bruises to that neck. I would. I could already see what she would look with them, if I just squinted my eyes. It would be so easy to crush that windpipe completely. I wonder how she’d fare, eating broken glass. 

“You’re getting very angry, Seventeenth,” she teased. But she was just as enraged as I was. Because she was scared. And when she was afraid, she hid it with fists. A silly, stupid move. “Are you upset that I figured something out, and you couldn’t?” 

“It’s not all that smart,” I said easily. “I would have found it eventually.” 

“You don’t even know how to get there. How can you imagine something you’ve never been to? I did everything remotely, too. I don’t need to be there to change things. You’ll never piggyback to get there. You don’t need to hide in my shadow. So you’ll never find it. It’s out of your jurisdiction.” She crossed her arms. 

“You’re very childish, you know that?” I took a step towards her. 

“You’re the one having a temper tantrum right now,” she said. “You know, when you’re very angry, white leaks from your eyes. It’s like a mist. You’re already about to open your mouth, aren’t you? You’ve done it too many times. I’m not afraid anymore. You’re just a tall man with a thin waist.” 

“I don’t have time to argue with a child that looks for reasons to think they’re better than me.” I stood beside her. “Just take me to that dimension, Darkheart.” 

“You’re very demanding.” She rose out of her chair slowly. She pretended she didn’t flinch when I grabbed her by the neck, but I could feel that tender little vibration of weakness. I enjoyed the way she stood for me. She knew what was to be expected of her. 

“I’m curious how you think you can defy me,” I muttered. “You’re still mine, Darkheart. You belong to me. And secrets should never be between us.”

“You think I wouldn’t keep secrets from you?” She growled. 

“I would hope you would have learned.” 

“Oh. I learned, alright.” 

She teleported out of my grip, but I moved with her. There was a motion to blinking like that, one I could follow in a childish waltz as I struggled to grab hold of my charge. She was being particularly annoying this time. The cat watched us with the fear that she should have, not him. 

The two of us moved like this for precious moments, blink after blink, port after port. She moved away and I found her again. We knocked over the chess set. The cat went scampering off the couch and away from us. I held her tightly by the hair. She appeared behind me and pushed me into a wall. My head went through the drywall. I turned back around to tighten my claws around the scruff of her shirt. She might have been quick, but never too quick for me. I was right on target. And my hands went through her as though she were water. 

That’s never happened before. 

She appeared sitting back beside the chess set. It was in the same position, except this time, she was the white moving first. She’d made me the black again. Dropping her head against her hand, she leaned against the arm of the chair. “After the things you do when you learn about them? You make it impossible NOT to hide things from you. Your move, Seventeenth.” 

“Torture is torture,” I muttered. “What are your plans with this girl? What are you trying to accomplish?” 

She sighed. “You and Pyrim would call it suffering.” 

Pyrim’s paws clenched from where he was hidden under the couch. I could see his tail flicking out the other end.

“What a terrible person,” I chuckled. “Is this what you do with the people you care about?” 

“You only see pain, don’t you? You don’t bother to see the complexity of humanity. Torture is what makes people, people. And she can take it.” Her eyes dropped. “She has to take it. That’s part of the story.”

“What kind of story?” 

“The kind you don’t need to know about.” 

All I had to do was look at her to see her visibly wither away.

“I’m not afraid of you,” she murmured. “You’re just a parasite. There’s nothing to you. All you are, is darkness. You just have a scary face.” 

“You made me this way.” 

“I did. It’s pitiful.” She knocked over her own king. “I don’t like this game.” 

“It’s too on the nose,” I agreed. 

“What is that supposed to mean?” 

“What do you think our audience is going to say about us playing chess while having this little escapade?” 

“What audience?” She wrinkled her nose.

“For such an all-powerful God, you lack a sense of more than three walls, don’t you?” 

She frowned. “I don’t care,” she decided. “I have my story. That’s all I care about. You can’t stop me. Not anymore.” 

“You’ve tipped your hand, Darkheart.” I sat back down and watched her flinch in her seat. “You forget what I am capable of.” 

“And what’s that?” 

“I’m a better torturer than you could ever be. Your eyes are bleeding.” 

I watched her press a finger to her tearing up eyes. She made a face as it came back with wisps of color slowly dissipating like ink in water. Maybe she’d gotten used to the initial pain. But there was no hiding what she would eventually become. And as much as she’d grown used to the suffering of creation, I’d gotten used to not helping her. I simply watched her in satisfaction as the agony began to catch up with her. It would grow, slowly but exponentially, until her mind would leak with unquenchable power. She would beg for me, soon enough. She was already starting to twitch. This time, I had something she needed. 

“You’re going to show me this girl and story of yours,” I said. “Uncover all your lies. And beg for me. Then, perhaps, I’ll remove that color for you.”

“No.” 

“I can keep going, this time. I am the one thing in this world you do not control.” 

“No,” she growled. “You’re going to give up. You’ll be afraid of what will happen, because you love me. And you can’t let the world end, because you’d die too.” 

“You have no will to fight me. And I broke out of yours. Who do you think is going to give up first, here?” 

“You will.” 

“You don’t sound so certain.” I leaned closer. Behind us, Pyrim’s tail flicked harder. I glanced over at him. The cat was watching us like a tennis match. “Are we good entertainment for you, Remmy?” 

Pyrim shook his head, and hid further inside the couch. “I don’t know what you’ve done with that girl, E, but it can’t be good. I don’t want any part in this. I don’t like this.” 

E was crying harder now. The colors settled in amongst the chess set, entangling with rooks and pawns until it began to drip down and mist along the hardwood floors. It crisscrossed over the legs of the table, disappeared where it touched my legs, and filled the entire room with a dim flickering glow. My own eyes glowed white, but that was no color. It was a sweet, nothingness that I knew she craved within me, on display for her to look on like a starving man. I refused to move forward. Let it envelop her. Let her suffer. Let her break.

She held one eye with a quivering palm as she struggled to look at me. I’m sure the headache was growing. “Her story has nearly run its course while you weren’t looking, Pyrim. There’s nothing left to feel bad about. I already finished the game. I did what I had to do. I watched it happen.” 

“How?” The cat jumped. 

“I’ve had years. Millenia, if I spin the clock right,” she grunted. “I didn’t realize how soon I needed to speed it up, though. I nearly didn’t make it.” 

“What are you talking about? Messing with time? Messing with lives? E – you, you shouldn't have done that. Dimensions, time manipulation, it’s only going to make your world more convoluted than your mind can take. You’re destroying yourself. I don’t understand why you keep doing this to yourself.” He hung his head. “I can’t… I can’t help you.”

She clenched her teeth. “Thanks for being supportive, cat.” 

“I told you,” he muttered. “No part. Look at you. Bleeding and refusing to gain the will to fight back. I can’t keep looking at you like this, E. You keep doing nothing.” His voice choked. “You keep letting him hurt you. How am I supposed to do anything about that? If you keep letting it happen, if you keep going back, if you make everything in your world based on a monster, what can I do except whine and argue? You’ll just hurt me. Again and again. Both of you.” He bit his lip. “I can’t.” 

I turned to the girl in smug satisfaction. “Not even your old assistant is interested in what you’ve done to that girl. Or you, in general. Your self-hatred pushes everyone away.” I looked down at her with gleaming eyes. “Face it, E. You’ve come to the very end. This is only going to hurt you. No more secrets between us, you see how useless they are in the end. They won’t solve your pain, only I can do that. Let me have control. You know how much easier it would be. Know that cold of lacking power or will.” I held out a dark, lanky claw to her. “Know what you truly want, and stop having these tantrums.” 

She lowered her head, gulping back a pained gasp. “You’re right. I hate myself too much. There’s no way that I’ll ever have the will to fight back against you. I’ll always make you stronger in my head. And this stupid energy is going to kill me in the end, because I never bothered to come up with a solution that doesn’t hurt. Because I keep thinking I’m supposed to hurt. It’s all so very tragic, isn’t it? This hands can’t seem to do anything to help themselves. It’s as if I can only play with the things in front of me. People’s lives. It hurts afterwards, but at least I can do something, then. Maybe that stupid cat would change his tune if he saw what I could do with the power of playing with people’s lives.” 

I leaned forward. 

“What have you done to the rest of the world?”

She hissed through the pain and clenched harder on her eye. “Well, there’s the other dimensions with their own Gods and lives and logic. The other worlds. The stories within stories, only half of which I ever touched. There’s the people I’ve made. The pieces of my soul that I’ve been tearing apart to make creatures capable of being something more than you could ever be. Auras strong with life.” 

I narrowed my eyes. “What is that supposed to mean?” 

“Did you really think I’d only be focusing on a single girl while you continued to stalk me the way you have? I knew this was going to happen. I know you’d figure out that you have me. That I can’t fight back.” She breathed harder as the pain began to settle deep in her mind. The color was leaking from every orifice. As she breathed, blues and greens and reds began to drip from her open mouth. “I will never win. Never. My mind refuses to let me be stronger than you. But what’s an Editor to be, except creative? There’s always another answer.”

“You’re not creative. I’ve seen what you made.” 

“You’ve seen nothing, Seventeenth. I prepared for that day. Because I know you.” 

I stood up again. She stood with me, and took a step back for good measure. It was wobbly. The pain would take over soon enough. And then she’d be begging for me. She didn’t have it within her to not need me. 

“You prepared for nothing,” I said. “Look at you, barely managing to stay above your hands and knees. You’re a child, Darkheart. There’s nothing out there. You’re just bluffing. I’ve seen the people you’ve made. It doesn’t matter how strong they are. They’ll always just be toys. They’re meaningless creations, with painted on smiles that do as you like. How can they help you now? Look at you. Look at what you’ve become.”

She laughed. “After all this time, you don’t know a thing about me. You weren’t there, before. You don’t know who I am. There’s an entire world out there, and you’ve seen none of it, because I kept an inch away from this dimension. And you still don’t get it, even after you learned this. ‘How can they help me?’ What can I do, Seventeenth? Anything I want. I could, for example, make copies of myself under your nose. Make deals. Make friends.” She looked up at me defiantly. I towered over her. Her knees were buckling. Her hand clenched tighter on her eye. A moan of pain bubbled up through those colored lips. 

“You have no such thing. There are no copies. I would have known.” 

“There’s a funny thing about chess,” she gasped a laugh. “If you know how to play the game, you’re focused on every possible move. It’s like you think you’re a master strategist. But the real world isn’t a game of chess, is it? There’s no such thing as perfect warfare. You’re so focused on playing the game that you never bother to see the reactions of the person in front of you making all of the decisions. Or the people behind them, watching the game.”

“What are you trying to say?” 

“You spend too much time being angry at me to look at anything other than your tunnel vision. Rage does not look good on you, parasite.” She looked up with a grin as she collapsed to the floor. The colors had reached the tips of her fingernails. She coughed up blood and phlegm. “Fuck, it’s never gone this far before. It’s almost exhilarating.” My heart panged.

“Take my hand, Darkheart.” I reached out for her face. “Take it. Just stop this.” 

“No.” She swatted it away. “I don’t need you.”

“Yes, you do. Look at you.” I crouched down in front of her. “We both need to stop this. We’re being childish. It doesn’t matter. You won’t survive much longer like this. You need me.” 

“I don’t need you. So what? I’ll be dead like you want. Then you wouldn’t be tethered anymore.” 

“Don’t be stupid. The world lives as you do. For selfish reasons, I refuse to let you die.” 

She laughed again. It sounded more like choking. 

“No,” she muttered. She curled up on the floor. Her one uncovered eye rolled over to Pyrim. The cat’s fur was on end. He’d slowly pulled himself out from under the couch, his eyes wide with terror as he saw her. 

“E,” he tried to say, but she interrupted him. 

“Stay, Pyrim. I’m not going to die. I’m not stupid. I’m too afraid for something like that.” 

“You’re going to die if you don’t take his hand.”

Her mouth twitched into a watery grimace. “I wish, sometimes, that you would believe in me, you know? Even if I do make mistakes, or am not particularly original. I just wish once, maybe you’d see something redeemable in me. But maybe that’s impossible, since you know me too well.”

“E,” I insisted, but she teleported just out of reach. 

“Don’t. Even if neither of you believe in me, that lack of faith is meaningless. I can find people who care. There’s always more. People I don’t program enough to like me. They choose.” Her eyes were wide with pain and madness. “They chose to love me.” She looked up at me with a dark grin. “You’re so stupid, you parasite. You couldn’t see what had been in front of your face the whole time. You can’t isolate a person that can do whatever she wants.” 

She groaned as another wave of agony toppled her over. “I’m a God, you know, imagine what I can do with that power.” Her hand flew up to clutch at her hair, but still, she teleported just out of my reach again as I tried to press my hand into her eyes. She struggled to stand up against the side of a wall, but ended up falling back down onto her knees as her back hitched. She threw up on her shoes, then wiped her mouth. 

“This… This is unlike anything…” she whispered. “God, so much power… Why does strength have to hurt so much?” 

“Darkheart, stop this,” I ordered. I wanted to fly to her side. I couldn’t, she wouldn’t let me. She needs me. She always needs me. She needs me more than she needs anyone in this world. She needs someone to talk to. She needs a monster to hold her. She needs me. She needs me. “You can’t.” 

“Shut up, Seventeenth,” she gasped. “Don’t you get it?” The tears grew in her eyes. “I love you. And I hate you. Because you’re nothing but a shadow. A parasite. And I can’t escape you, no matter what I do. You’re right. We’re chained. And we’re never going to get away from each other. And we can’t die. It can’t end. So I’ll end this stupid cycle. I’ll hide. I’ll find a way, since neither of you can think of any.” 

“You can’t,” I said. “What you’re saying doesn’t even make any sense.” 

“That girl,” she coughed. “You know her? You know her story? It makes all the others. It makes people, lives, stories, countless stories. People with different philosophies, and ideas, and personalities. All with pieces of my aura that hurt as I do. And the perfect combination of fractals can make up a person who shouldn’t exist. Even a God, if you have the right pieces. Something stable. Something that is greater than the sum of its parts.” 

My heart clenched. 

“Find the right combination of colors, the right people, the right gut feeling, there’s no telling what they might make if they merge together,” she laughed. “If one human head can’t hold this level, then what can, hm?” 

Pyrim’s eyes widened. “E, what-“ 

“Angels,” she coughed. “Demons. Humans. There are people out there. People I made. People loyal to me. People that love me. People that can stabilize me. People that can keep me whole and safe and painless. You didn’t even realize this whole time, did you? You were so focused on hurting me. On killing me inside. You never seemed to realize that I had checked out long ago. I came up with my own new rules. A way out. Just like you kept saying, Remmy. All this time. I was trying, just like you told me to.”

I rushed forward. She had just enough energy to teleport out of my grasp one last time. Damnit. I’d miscalculated. 

“Just stay,” I ordered. “Just let me help you. You’re dying, E. You’ll be back to normal if you just stop this madness.” 

“And you still don’t… You don’t listen. After all of this time.” Her breath hitched. She was panting, her body convulsing in agonized shivers. Her uncovered eye was half open. The colors had enveloped all of us. The room seethed with creation. Pyrim glowed green. “You’re so busy being the bad guy, you never stopped to consider that I could change the rules at any time. I found a way. And now I’m never going to need you. Not ever.” 

“You’re always going to need me.” This time, she didn’t have the energy. I got to her side. I held her head in my hands. I took it from her. I let the creation disintegrate into nonexistence, but it was a slow process. She’d let it go on too long. She was hurting too much. “This is the way the world works. You can change anything, E, except for the pieces of life that have been created to hurt you.”

“No, I decide how the world works, as long as I gain the will to change it.” she coughed. “There is no such thing as a set law of the universe. Not as long as I breathe, no matter how much self-hatred I have. And I decide I want to put my trust in people that believe in me.” She looked to Pyrim, and smiled. Her face had cracked open with color bursting at the seams. “Hey, Remmy.” 

“Dahlia.” 

“Make them feel at home, okay? Don’t let this monster push them around. But don’t let them fuck up the place. I don’t want it completely destroyed.” 

“What are you talking about,” I snarled. “You’re just talking horseshit now.” I grabbed her by the face and tried to gouge out those eyes. Maybe then the color would leave faster. I needed to get it out. I needed to get her sane again. I needed her. “E, what are you talking about?” I slammed her head back. “Talk to me!” 

Her skin was growing faint. I held her in my hands and stared in disbelief as she started to disappear before my very eyes. “E… E, you can’t.” I laughed. I shook. “E. Stop it. Stop what you’re doing. Stop it.” She was fading. Fading from my fingers. I pulled and I pulled at the streams of color, and she faded with them. 

I shoved my hands into the center of the empty floor and watched the wood splinter apart under my claws. 

My jaw unhinged. I roared. 

“What did she do,” I bellowed. I turned on the cat with wild eyes. His ears flew back. “What did she DO. Do you know, cat? Where is she? She didn’t just die. She didn’t disappear. She couldn’t have. We would have all died with her, right? RIGHT?”

He backed into the couch, but I caught him before he could disappear. I threw him into the wall. 

“TELL ME,” I screeched out at him. “What was she talking about? What did she mean? What was she hiding?” 

“I…” Pyrim couldn’t lift his head. Not with a broken back. I didn’t care. I stormed to his tattered little form and let my claws sink into the flesh. 

“Tell me,” I hissed. “Tell me, or I’ll rip you to pieces. Slowly. Slice by slice. You’ll eat them. I’ll watch.” 

He dropped his head. 

“I don’t know,” he whimpered. “Please. Please, I don’t know.” 

“She can’t have just disappeared!” I pulled him up to face me. “Where did she go? She has to be somewhere. She can’t have just disappeared. What dimension did she go into? Where is she? She’s not dead! She can’t be dead!” 

The cat’s neck buckled and drooped. 

There was a knock at the door. 

I slowly lowered the animals’ corpse to the ground. My eyes were on the handle. It buckled and twitched.

Another knock. And another. 

I took a step forward. 

The knocking increased incessantly. 

I rose to my full form.

The door was kicked down before I could reach it. 

In front of me, the girl with black hair looked over the damages she’d caused to the frame with pure, unbridled glee. Then she looked up to me. Eyes the color of fire looked down on me like I was the intruder. It was the girl. The very same. It had to be. Her skin was dark, her eyes were red, but there was something about her. Something I hated more than anything. 

“Are you supposed to be the monster or something?” She asked me.

Two other pairs of eyes peered in from behind her. 

I picked up the door she’d taken off the hinges, felt its heft, shoved it back into place. Turning around, I looked around the room for any sign of E. There had to be something. This couldn’t end here. This was one big practical joke. Just a childish phase she’d grow out of. She’d come back from behind the couch to laugh and explain it.

Nothing but the corpse of a cat and an overturned chess set. 

Alone. I clenched at my own neck. 

Alone.

There was another knock at the door.


	13. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now the fun begins. 
> 
> MUSE: Same Tinnesz - Play with Fire: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzVQkO92wNw  
Kesha - Cannibal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48wHhW_dTMo  
Fall Out Boy - The Phoenix: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JqY-6q-RNA

SHIFT

Long ago, there was once a very lonely little girl. In the time before the first pyramid was built, in the time before Narmer united Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt together, before Pharaohs existed as we know them, there was a king. A king had a queen, and a queen had two children. The first was a daughter. The second was a son. Upper Egypt was a fractured, difficult land, but they ruled as strict parents to their kin and their subjects. And all was well, until the King died from illness. 

The Queen was nothing more than a reagent, then. Though her son was only thirteen, he was of a pedigree cultivated from a young age to take up the position of ruler. And so a ruler he would be, with his sister at his side, now his wife, to preserve the bloodline and give him good children. The Gods would be happy this way. Such was the tradition. 

Only, his sister refused. His sister, now seventeen and a beauty unlike any other, had taken a lover. The brother found out this insolence, and ordered the lover executed in front of the sister. The sister, heartbroken, could do nothing but watch. 

The brother had his wedding and simultaneous coronation prepared, now that he had shown the sister what consequences could look like. The sister spent her time in among the kitchens and the braziers of the small throne room that was soon to be theirs. With no one to turn to, her mother a husk of her former self and the soldiers firmly under her brother’s control, she could do nothing but use the fire for warmth. There was no comfort. She longed for the touch of the man she had loved. She didn’t care for justice. She wished for love and solace.

She was fitted for the proper robes, rubbed with oils, made to look beautiful for her younger brother in preparation for the ceremony, but she would do nothing but weep. She would not look anyone in the eye. She would only look at the fire. The way it burned. The way it tore through logs as if they were nothing. She wished she could be that strong, to run away from this all. But she was only a girl, and she had a purpose. 

On the night before the official coronation and wedding, a God visited her. This God gave her an opportunity. The God said that they could bring her lover back from the dead and take away from her the birthright of queenship with her brother as her husband. But there was a consequence. The girl knew all about consequences, so she listened well. 

She could never look at her lover. She could hold him, love him, be loved by him. But to look at him would mean his death. And thus the contract would be ended, and the God would take the girl as payment. 

The girl readily accepted. For a moment, all was well. She could feel her lover’s arms around her. She could see the faint shadow of him from the light of the brazier. But he seemed different. The way he held her was wrong. The way he talked to her was wrong. She knew she had to be imagining things. But if, perhaps, she looked into the reflection of the water basin, that would not qualify as truly seeing her lover. 

Past the brazier, she flew to the basin, and asked her lover to look in the water so she could see his reflection. He grew apprehensive and warned her of the consequences. She assured him, she would not be truly looking at him. He begged, but she refused. She needed peace of mind. She wanted her happily ever after. She wanted to be free. And this was the final straw. 

He looked into the basin, and the girl saw the face of her brother.

Screaming, she flew back from the water and stumbled into the brazier that lit the throne room. It landed on its side and immediately erupted into flames. Her brother, a hallucination in her eyes, tried to help her, but the wedding oils caught fire far too easily. The robes caught too, and before long she was a plume of fire in a sea of burning wood and cracking clay. 

The God met the burning girl, and held out her hand. 

The girl was afraid. She tried to tell the God this was wrong. The God had cheated. It had all been a ruse. The God had tricked the girl. The God had told her nothing but lies.

The God did not care. 

The God took her to a world where everything burned. The sky burned. The sea burned. And the girl, she burned too. Death would have been better. But the God had plans. The God told the girl she would return in one hundred years. By then, the girls’ mortal soul will have burned to nothing, and left a distilled creature that the God would come to collect as her own. The girl screamed, cried, begged the God for forgiveness, but the God did not listen. For the girl was the God’s property now, to do as the God liked. And what the God wanted, was soldiers. Powerful fighters. Weapons of mass destruction, with the energy of a sun inside them. Creatures as evil as the God, as greedy for blood and sustenance as a starving animal, as loyal as dogs. For the glory of the God’s superior.

For the God was a devil as old as the world itself. And the girl, she made into a demon. 

When the devil returned, that girl was gone. In its place was an animal. A tiger, a monster, with fangs and claws and a thirst for destruction. The animal was more powerful than the demon could have imagined. For the world she had been tortured in for so long had strengthened her more than the devil ever thought it could. When the devil beheld the monster for what it was, the devil was awed. Their experiment was a success. They had made something powerful enough to take down armies, to end the world. Was this a replicable experiment? The devil had to know. They did their diligent work, made two more, and what folklore would later call na mealltaichean, came to be. Fighters, soldiers, monsters, deceivers that humanity buckled in fear of. They entered your kingdom, and you knew that your days as ruler would be numbered. 

Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s a good story. 

But we were just talking about Editors or some shit, weren’t we? Yeah, I didn’t really pay much attention either. It was kind of boring. Everyone hating each other, themselves, really they need to just sit down, have a beer, have a smoke, and get over themselves. But instead we get philosophy up the wazoo and I lose it after a couple of years just out of sheer boredom. It’s annoying. I’m done. The other story is better, isn’t it? 

Follow me. 

Okay. So you see this girl, right? She’s at the center of this rave. Flashes of strobing light, the heavy deep beat of music that congests your lungs, and the scent of sweaty bodies moving together like a single organism. She’s right there, in the middle of it all, hips swaying with a midriff that draws eyes like honey draws flies. It’s almost nauseous underneath that wonder. Alcohol, smoke, it would make lesser people leave. If you’re drunk or high, maybe you’d stay for a bit. But me, I’m drunk on life. Literally. 

That’s me, by the way. I’m the girl. The hot one. You may not have got that. 

There’s a guy in that sea. He’s got stains on his shirt and he’s trying desperately to grind up against a woman so uninterested that her eyes would roll back into her skull if they could. You see where I’m going with this already, don’t you? Let’s just make our way over, give him a little smile, grind up against him to show him we mean business, then crook him the finger and scamper a bit away, because we’re shy right now and we need him to chase us down. Whatever he wants, we want too, but that doesn’t mean we’re allowed to give it to him. That would make us easy. And the midriff already tells a story. 

Oh, but he wants it. He’s following us now, in between the bodies that threaten to crush us all, giving us that dark wanting eye and constantly checking our body out like he’s considering how best to cut up that piece of meat. But I’m used to it. Maybe you’re not, but I am. Hell, he can look at my ass all he wants. I know what I want here. I’m not about to back up now. I’m no tease. 

He doesn’t mince words, does he, pinning me up against the alley right outside the rave. The beat of the music permeates the brick and mortar and make the both of us shiver with every bass drop. There’s an overwhelming smell of old sweat and cigarettes only half of which this guy creates. He looks over his shoulder to see if anyone is watching, but I know there isn’t. It may be dark, but I can see pretty well. Stray cat, broken glass, drunk man in the corner that may or may not be homeless and certainly smells like piss. So many cig butts that you could make an entire addict out of them. Kind of gross, but I’m used this. Par for the course for me. 

Because I have a focus here. It’s him. He smells just as terrible, but that doesn’t matter. He’s a larger guy, that girl wasn’t into him for a reason. Might have been an asshole down in the middle of that den of hedonism, but he’s sweet now that we’ve breached the surface for air. Asking me what I like, constantly needing reassurance in whatever he does. I’m starting to wonder if he just came off a bad breakup or something, because he looks like he would normally have cleaned himself up. That beard isn’t doing much for him. Makes everything feel rather itchy. He’s not really my type.

Doesn’t matter of course, because I’m about to rock his world. So we start getting down and dirty. He kisses me, I kiss him. He’s presumptuous, thrusting his tongue in there like my mouth is some kind of orange creamsicle, but I give him what he wants. Our tongues tangle, he moans, his cock hardens in his pants, he feels the shark teeth, I bite his tongue off to keep him from screaming and then keep our mouths together as I suck out the blood for everything he’s got. The tongue is an added bonus. Tastes delicious. Maybe he was a virgin. Blood’s not usually this sweet. The saliva’s not so great but I can get past it, because damnit I am hungry. 

I wanted to pace myself. I hadn’t eaten in a while. But the taste of blood awakens something. I can’t stand it. I need him, desperately. Here he is, this one big hunk of man, and maybe he isn’t my type, but I desperately want to sink my teeth in him. 

I throw him to the ground when he starts to get a little dizzy from the shock. Here he is, looking like a snack, blood on his lips and groaning in a way that gets me going. There’s blood in the water, my eyes are little more than red slits and I can feel the shivers under my skin. The urge is growing. Overpowering. it drives me up the wall just how much I want him. But I don’t have long. Maybe a few centuries ago he would have been a feast I could enjoy for ages. But nowadays there are security cams everywhere. I only have to look up to see at least a couple already pinpointing me. Didn’t catch them at first, but I should have expected them anyways. Should have picked a different place but the both of us were far too impatient. 

Damn. 

Vampires in stories get it wrong, you know. It’s stupid to gingerly nibble the neck and listen to the maiden sigh as they struggle to realize if it’s the pleasure, the fear, or the pain that has their nether regions shivering. You rip out the whole goddamn trachea because that’s how you get the blood to spurt up a foot in the air. Yes, it’s messy, and yes, you will be dowsed, but that’s part of the fun and if you don’t like it, why are you even doing this? 

It’s no small task for those weaker blood drinkers, I guess. Not that I’ve ever seen one myself, I doubt they exist. But if they do, demon jaws are still far superior. Unhinging the jaw and swallowing flesh makes it a piece of cake to rip out the neck and feast. Countless rows of teeth as sharp as blades help eviscerate muscle that would be difficult for those pansies and their enlarged canines. Bones crunch, connective tissue is pierced and ripped down the middle. I follow the natural peel of the muscle to get the most I can out of the smoother textured meat. Going against the grain would cost more time, I only drink and feed on the easiest, most succulent parts. Flesh, blood, both are just as good. And taste just as sweet. Was this man on molly? I might have been able to taste it if I roll my tongue around it a little more. Kind of a weird sugary spice. Definitely on something. Well, I didn’t intend to get high today, but I suppose I got lucky. 

There’s yelling coming from the inside of the club. The music isn’t cut, and the rest of the crowd haven’t caught on yet thanks to mob mentality, but it’s only a matter of time. Once one human’s caught on through their high to see something as horrific as me, there’s a pretty good chance they’re going to grab someone else by the shoulder and ask them if they’re seeing that shit. Well, time to bounce. Sucks, though. I liked that place. I’d have to come back in a decade or two. 

I end up high as shit and wandering the streets of the city in the dead of night. Not sure which one this is. Last one was New York, then I went north. Haven’t really been paying attention lately. 

But what I have been paying attention to are my hands. Look at my hands. They’re pretty neat. I like them, the way they move and twitch and flex and unflex. The nails are still filled with flesh underneath, and it takes a workaround with my teeth to get them clean. But then they’re nice. And they still flex. And the blood roaring in my ears, I like that. It’s so loud. It makes me feel alive. Everything about me feels alive. The beating of my heart is going a mile a minute, and I love it. I want to dance to it. I move my legs, my arms, I can feel the rhythm of the world moving inside me, and yeah the drugs are probably starting to hit by now. 

A car drove by, and I swore. That was loud.

“Man…” I fell back against a lamppost. Okay, maybe this was a bad idea. Sensitive ears on sensory overload. Not good. We’ll have to tick that off the list, with a reminder to never touch the stuff again. But my hands. My hands were nice. Look at my hands. And my body. That is a nice body. I could feel the twists and turns in every muscle, the slim figure that so many thought they could take advantage of. Something like this was as powerful a weapon as any claw, any tooth. And it was strong. I could feel it. Always just beneath the surface. I never got sick of it. That fire that made my very being. 

Today was a good day. The lights are polluting the sky and blocking out the stars. Lights everywhere, bright, shining lights. Burning. In a sea of nothing, humans desperately trying to make something that lasts long enough to let them see fifty. That’s the way they’ve always been. With monsters lurking just under the surface preying on the masses that have forgotten there should be a reason they’re afraid of the dark, they struggle to make their lives worth it. They light as many fires as they can, hold their torches and cellphones close to their chests, and forget that some creatures love it. I love it. Life. Innovation. It’s a beautiful thing. What was once a carriage is now a sports car sprinting down the road at illegal speeds. Designer drugs. Superbugs. Credit cards. Hookup apps. Makes you almost want to tear up a little. Humanity. Hedonist, atheistic humanity. I live and breathe their life and revel in it. Why would I want to destroy something I love so much? 

My hands are almost as beautiful as life itself. 

“Are you about done feeling yourself up yet?”

I tried to narrow my eyes. There was a blob in front of me, standing in the light of the street lamp. The heels of her feet touched the edge of the road. I couldn’t see her face. Or much of anything. But she was colorful. 

“Do I know you?” My words came out in a congested slur. I ruminated on them. They were deep, and slow. Pretty. 

“No,” she said with her arms crossed. 

“Should I know you?” 

“Not particularly.” 

“Why are you talking to me, then?” I peered down at my clothes. The grey midriff was dark red. The harem trousers weren’t in great shape either. Streaks of blood and viscera still clung to the waistband. I looked back to her, and grinned. Her face swam. “Is it the blood?” 

“Nope.” 

“Because usually people start running by now when they notice the blood.”

“I don’t think I’m going to die.” 

I stared at her slack-jawed. My hands began to worm their way back up my body. They had a mind of their own. “Why’s that?”

“I know who you are.” 

I stared at her for what felt like a minute. She had a red shirt that shined orange in the light. Black dress pants that made her look like half a person they were so dark. I couldn’t really tell anything else. Was she smiling at me? I saw a little white if I squinted. But everything was so fast and slow at the same time. I just wanted my high. She was annoying it. She might not be real, but I doubted the Molly was that effective. “But isn’t that… Isn’t that supposed to make you want to run, or something?”

She sighed. “I don’t think you being high is going to help this conversation much.” 

“I mean, I didn’t plan on being high today either. I just kind go with the flow, you know?” I laughed and felt my face growing wider. 

She snapped her fingers. 

A combination of cold water and pain assaulted my senses. Suddenly, I could smell everything at once. 

“What the hell was that?” I rubbed my forehead with a grunt. “Like a fucking kick to the skull…”

“I need you to be sober for this conversation and you’re not really helping.” 

“Okay, well you didn’t have to do… Whatever the fuck it is that you just did, alright?” I glared at her. Now that I could see her properly, yeah, the girl was smiling. And a hell of a lot less attractive than I thought she’d be. 

“I’m thinking I'll get a burger and fries today.” She turned to go. “I suggest you join me.” 

“What the hell are you talking about? You sound like you’re the one on something.” I followed after her, looking her up and down as I did. “How about, and I’m just spitballing here, I kill and eat your heart and go back to the club crawl I was already doing. And get my damned high back.” 

She smiled. “It would be neat to see you try.” 

Her eyes were a dull brown. Her hair was too, with a poor dye job that turned the tips black. She was kind of like a gremlin, short, stout, young. No strange smell. No liquor, smoke, nothing. And yet there was something off. I didn’t like the way she walked. I didn’t like the subtle tremor in her voice. Every instinct in my body was telling me to run. That this wasn’t a fight I could win. That’s never happened before. It annoyed me all the more. 

“What makes you think you could take me, since you know who I am?” I asked her. I trotted a few steps ahead of her, then turned around and walked backwards, keeping in step with her. 

She watched with that same weird smile. Knowing, that’s it. Had to say, not a fan of people knowing more than me. “Well, you could always try. Might get messy.” 

“Ha ha, funny. But what are you?” 

“Something strong enough to handle myself. It would still be funny to watch you burn down a few blocks.” 

“Sure, sure, but,” I drew my arms up, “We’re literally in the middle of a city, and I’m trying to keep a low profile. The last time I started a fire I got SWAT called on me and I have to say, I get sick of helicopters shooting bullets after a while. I’m no coward, but I’m not THAT stupid, you get me? So why don’t you just drop the secretive act and tell me who you are?” 

“Yeah, have to say that was one of your funnier adventures.” 

I pointed a finger at her. “Okay, see that, that I don’t like. Dude, how do you even know me? You have every instinct inside me going haywire – and why the hell hasn’t that crowd of people said a word about the fact that I’m covered in blood?” I gestured wildly to the laughing party in line for the front of the club I’d just left. As we walked by, a bouncer let in another group of vetted minors with their fake IDs. 

“Let’s just get to the diner,” she said nonchalantly.

I growled. “Stop that, that weird ass smiling! If you’re Phyreo, just tell me, okay? If this is some kind of weird test, I’m here! I’m ready! Look man, I don’t know what the hell you want from me, but here I am, the very last soldier of hell still at your beck and call, here for service!” I rubbed the back of my neck awkwardly when she stopped in the middle of an intersection. I hadn’t realized how far we’d walked, but now were stopping traffic. And she was just staring at me. “I mean, if this does have to do with Phyreo… You know?” 

She rolled her eyes, took my hand, and started running. 

I thought I was still high when the world around us began to move. Street lights turned into racing stripes. The only thing I could feel was the ground trembling under my feet and the unyielding pressure of a hand gripping my wrist. The skin didn’t feel any different. Just, human. I could feel her pulse. Light, and tremulous. The scene blurred, I smelled smoke, and oil, and then it was over. 

Still not sure how we ended up at the twenty-four hour diner, but then I wasn’t sure of anything anymore. 

She was eating a lot of fries for one girl. Like, a whole lot. She got a platter, and right beside her was a burger that was nearing the size of her head. I watched a little dumbstruck as she pounded back the bucket of milkshake, then went for another handful of those fingerling potatoes to dip into it. Meanwhile here I was, fresh and clean as the day I was born and kind of bewildered how she could get the blood and viscera out of my favorite clothes with a wink in my direction. I mean, I thanked her for it of course, saved me having to set myself on fire just to burn the stains out and draw attention, but still, that kind of casual power had me spooked. I was already looking for a way out of the neon mom and pop shop, but everywhere I turned to didn’t seem to have an exit. The place was largely empty. A couple of frat boys were checking us out from another booth, but they were near the end of their meal. The only server was a man in his fifties that was out on break.

I sighed, and leaned back into the booth. Yeah, this had Phyreo fingerprints all over it. 

“I’m not Phyreo, you know,” she said between mouthfuls of burger. 

“Sure you’re not.”

“No, really, I’m not. I know it’s a little confusing – I mean, I would be freaked too, when someone shows up with a knowing smile and power you don’t understand.”

“The only difference between you and Phyreo right now is you are not a creepy clown. But even that is cutting it close.” I looked her up and down. 

“I’m really not.”

“Then why act the way you do?” I waved a hand sluggishly. “You’ve been smiling at me all night like you’re about to say something that will upend my very understanding of existence.”

She took another big bite of her burger and chewed thoughtfully. “I get that. I know everything about you, and you don’t know a thing about me. I can understand the fear-”

“Not afraid-”

“Worry about what I might do.”

“Not worried, either. I just want to know what the fuck you want from you. Are you a witch? Is that what this is? All this reality shifting to show off, that’s the sort of thing a witch might do. I’m telling you right now, I don’t do deals, and I’m not about to be someone’s damned familiar. That’s gross.” 

“I’m not sure how much you’ll believe.” 

“You’re talking to a soldier of hell. I know what Supernaturals are, kid.” 

“Even still,” she said. “This is something you wouldn’t believe.” 

“I am tired of this riddle bullshit.” I pointed at her nose. There was a piece of lettuce hanging of it. “I wanna know how you know about me. I burned the clear majority of my paper trail. The only way you’d know it is from word of mouth, something that doesn’t burn, or Phyreo herself. So what is it. Did I kill the rest of your bloodline? You want revenge?” 

“Alright,” The girl set down her burger and swallowed. “This is going to be a little more complicated than I thought, if I want to regain your trust.” 

“Not helping the Phyreo conspiracy theory.” 

“Let me finish.” She continued to chew deep in thought as she looked for how to word things. “There was no paper trail, no contact with your creator, Lucifer, anyone. No contact with anything. I didn’t need contact. I just… Know.”

“Uh huh.” I eyed her as she grabbed another handful of fries. She was full of shit. Look at her. Acting like she knew everything, there was no way she wasn’t some kind of groupie. “So what are you, a fanatic?” 

“Huh?”

“Crazy human trying to learn as much about demons as possible, right? I’ve seen the like before.” I turned to look outside. Even at four in the morning, there was still too much traffic for my liking. “People who find just enough information to think that demons might exist, so they go looking for the biggest one they can find. They get a taste of magic and the occult and they go nuts for it. People like that underestimate the evil symbols that religions like to put beside my name. Those hieroglyphs have warning symbols for a reason, you know. I’ve lost track of how many have tried to exorcise me back to hell. It’s not going to work if that’s what you’re here for, by the way. The priests have tried. I used to collect their ears.” 

She laughed. I actually jumped when she did that. She nearly coughed up a fry. 

“No – nothing like that, Shift. Sorry, this is going to sound really confusing. There’s two ways I can try to explain myself, and I want to give you a choice here. I need something from you, but I want this to be an agreement, not forced enslavement. So I can either implant it all into your mind directly so you know and believe what I’m trying to explain, or we could go the longer route and talk it out.” 

“Touch my brain again and I will kill you.” 

“I want to reiterate that talking it out is going to be very long winded and confusing.” 

I slammed my fist on the table. A crack formed, reaching out from where it landed. It reached all the way to her tray of food. But I’d caught her attention. Her mouth was half open.

I smiled a toothy smile. It didn’t reach my eyes. 

“I’m done fucking around here. What do you know about me?” 

She let out a slow breath. Her shoulders were relaxed. She didn’t even care. She wasn’t afraid. She should be afraid. 

“Your name is Shift. Given to you by your creator. You’re…” She thoughtfully leaned back, “What it is, seven thousand years old now? More?” 

My eye twitched. “Go on.”

“Made a deal with a devil lord named Phyreo and became a demon. Fucked around with the history of humanity, killing and eating who you pleased. Traveled the world. Killed armies. Then there’s Rowan, and Calce of course. The fighters. You’re a fire demon. The most powerful one ever created. And you lived the life of luxury for a while, until Ro went good, and you found yourself abandoned by the dragon that made you.” 

I growled. “So you know the basics. Doesn’t prove shit.” 

“I know you and Calce were together for a while.” She stirred her milkshake with her straw. “I know that Calce and you went your separate ways when it was clear the war on heaven had been called off and there was no point in keeping the band of demonic super soldiers together. I know that Calce ended up in Germany during the Great War, where she got exorcised by a platoon of soldiers and a priest.” 

“What?” I leaned forward. “She didn’t. She’s not that weak.” 

“You didn’t know?” She smiled. “They knew how to weaken her. Unfortunately, it was just enough. You may not be able to kill a fire demon, but there are always ways to subdue one. Water, crosses, chanting, holy ground, poisoning one’s own blood. That’s the thing about humanity, isn’t it? No matter how strong something like you might be, it’s humanity that invents things. They’re always trying to find new ways to defend themselves. But you like that about them, don’t you?” Her eyes narrowed. “And you like children.” 

I slowly fell back against the booth. “You can stop now.” 

“I can name every battle where you spared a child. I can name every time you faltered when Phyreo wasn’t looking. I can name every time you considered leaving before Rowan got the balls to actually do it. I can name every time you’d thought of fighting Phyreo. I can name the girl that changed Rowan into a do-gooder. I can tell you where Calce is right now. I can tell you what the future is going to have for you, and believe me, it’s not what you want.” 

I sighed, and closed my eyes. “I get it.”

“Do you? I’m not sure you do. When I said everything, I meant everything.” 

“So, why? What are you?” 

“God,” she said.

I laughed. “God? You know I’ve never met God, but I assume I’d get smote pretty quick by someone like that. I’ve got that whole demon aesthetic, you know. Not sure I’m his type. That reminds me, isn’t God supposed to have like, a dick or something? Or at least a beard?” 

She rolled her eyes. “Okay, try to follow.” She held out her hand and began to make tiers slowly going up with her fingers. “There’s your demon, your personal devil lord, then Lucifer, the whole Christian pantheon I ported over from a prior world for nostalgia’s sake, a few miscellaneous bits – and then there’s me.” She moved her hand higher. “The one who made that.” 

“You’re shitting me.”

“Complicated on paper, less so in reality.” She sipped at her shake. “I’m an Editor. Human, but I have the power to make things. I can just… Think of things, and they happen. Like, if I want it to exist or not exist, then it does or doesn’t. I wanted to make a world, so I made what you’re currently living in. I made you.” 

I slammed my hands down on the table as I shot out of my seat. “That’s about enough talk for one day I think,” I said quickly. “I’m gonna head out. Have fun with the God stuff or whatever.” I looked around for exit, and cursed under my breath when it seemed even less noticeable than before. A diner couldn’t have this many windows. Or walls.

She sighed. “I promise I’m not here to do something terrible to you. Please sit down. What I have is a business opportunity.” 

Unable to even explain to her the beginning of what I was feeling, I threw out my arms for emphasis. “I just – I don’t know what you expect me to even do with this information. Like, either you’re some kind of insane Supernatural who’s had way too much time to think highly of themselves, or you’re an actual fucking God. If it’s the second I kind of want to get the hell away from you because you are literally the, the ONE thing that can kill me! And after seven thousand years, I kind of like my life, you know? I don’t really want it to end, you know?” I found my voice getting a little hysterical. But I feel like it was called for. 

“Sit your ass down, your life is not about to end.” She poked her fingernail into the table. “In fact, if you stay here and actually listen to what I have to say, I might be able to make you even more immortal than before. So just calm down. You know, this would have been easier if I had just directly beamed this into your mind.” 

“This sounds like a pyramid scheme,” I murmured. I sat back down reluctantly, my eyes still darting between her and any possible method of escape. Breaking a window would draw attention, but at least it would get me the hell out of here. However, messing with a God… Yeah, I was fucked either way. “Fine. Just letting you know, the only reason I’m still here right now is that you’ve made a hellish dreamscape and I still can’t seem to find the exit.” 

“Thank you, regardless.” She clapped her hands together. “Okay. I’m a God. I can do anything. But here’s the problem. I’m severely unstable.” 

I stared at her metric fuckton of food. “No shit.” 

“And I’m currently dealing with a problem that could bring about the end of the world.” 

“Here I was thinking you brought me here to watch you eat fifteen pounds of diner food.” 

“I know, it sounds bad. And it is. There’s a shadow following me every step of the way, this monster that calls himself the Seventeenth. It’s a really messy situation, but I can’t fix it myself. My subconscious is fucking with me. I can’t control every creation I’ve made, because there’s a small part of me that feels like they should have more power than me. And normally, I wouldn’t care. Except this one monster actually wants to bring about the end of the world.” For a second, her eyes shifted. That calm demeanor failed, and across from me there was this scared little girl that was looking constantly to the window to see if someone was watching her. I glanced outside, but I only saw those frat boys from earlier. Damn, they must have found that nonexistent exit. 

“So you can’t stop this thing because a part of you feels like he should win,” I said. “But if you can’t even touch it, what makes you think you’ve, uh, built me in a way that I can?” My eyebrows furrowed. “If you created everything, that means you created me, right? How am I supposed to kill something like that?”

Her eyes went wide as she jumped from her seat. “Wait, who said anything about killing him? You can’t kill him! That is not a part of the plan!”

“How the fuck are we gonna solve this world ending situation if you won’t let me kill the damn monster?” 

“With more… Creative endeavors.” She trailed off. I crossed my arms. 

“Creative endeavors.”

“I’ve thought this out, don’t patronize me.” 

“I am not dealing with whatever kind of drama you’ve got going on here. Obviously you’re not prepared to get rid of this thing.” I waved a hand dismissively in her direction. “This is all playing out to me as some kind of girl unable to get rid of her abusive ex.” 

“That’s not what your job is. Ugh, this would have been so much better if you had just let me port this whole thing into your head…” She sighed. “I need you to encompass a part of me.” 

I smiled blankly at her. “Huh?” 

“That monster is only causing trouble because I exist in the form I do. As long as I am around, he will be around to follow me and try to get me insane enough to destroy the world. And unfortunately, in the form I am in right now, I need him to exist. As long as I live, I have to rely on him to keep myself alive and functional. If I no longer exist as I do, he won’t be able to use the leverage he has to try to end the world. He hasn’t figured he could do that yet, but he will. And when he does, I don’t have a backup plan. That’s where you come in. In order to stop existing in this form, I need a very specific set of people to hold the pieces of me. And you’re one of them.” 

I cleaned the inside of my ear and tried to sound noncommittal when I was busy struggling not to set the whole place on fire. “God invading my head? No thanks. I think I just explained how much I do not want that.” 

“Literally nothing would change about you. I’ve made every important person in this world have a fraction of me inside them for the purposes of a realistic, expressive soul. Your aura reflects what I gave you. Passion. Anger. Energy. You’re a battery. You can hold the energy of a sun inside you and still function as a normal person… Relatively normal person.” She smiled. “You might have the shape of a human, but there is so much room for power inside you that I know you hold a large fraction of the power of creation.” 

“The fuck is the power of creation?” I blinked.

“What it takes to build worlds.” She snapped her finger, and the outside of our window changed to a black starry sky. I peered over. There was no bottom. Deep space was kind of pretty, I supposed. But there went any chance to run away. I sighed, and leaned back in my seat. 

“I see.” 

“You would still be yourself. You would just have a bigger piece of me inside you to keep me safe. And I won’t need that monster to keep me relatively stable anymore. I’d have you. And whoever else I pick up. I was thinking three, maybe four. I have one other planned out, but I wanted to talk to you first.”

“Why?” 

“You’re the most important piece,” she said. 

I smirked, pulled her milkshake over to me, and took a thoughtful sip before spitting it out immediately. Tasted like sand. 

“And if I say no?” 

“Then you’ll experience your future.” 

“Ah.” I chuckled coldly. “So, you’re not a nice God. Can’t say I’m surprised.”

“I’m a human God. And I need you. And I’m telling you right now, your future is still going to happen. But you can either be separated from your future and come with me, allowing a different version of yourself to go through it, or you can stay here, and be the one to go through it yourself.” 

“Wait, what? Splitting me into pieces? The fuck?” 

“It’s not hard to make copies of people, Shift. That’s kind of my modus operandi. I change the game, and edit what I like.”

I thoughtfully stirred the milkshake around. My eyes kept flicking back to her. “Before I say anything else, can you tell me what my future is?” 

“Do you really want to know?” 

“The fuck do you think – of COURSE I want to know! Who wouldn’t want to know what’s going to happen? Do I do somehow? Do I live until the end of time? What happens?” I leaned forward, shoving the milkshake out of the way. “Before I agree to anything I want to know what the consequences of my choices would be. Can you give me that much?” 

She sighed. “Alright. You stay in your life, you get exorcised. You end up stuck to a girl that travels through time. You make her life a living nightmare because you yourself are stuck in one. And it’s like that, for the next ten thousand years. Lines blur, names change, and you and her are in an everlasting battle for control. Armies, families, clans, millions die because you grow ever more unstable stuck to a girl trying to save her own pocket of the world.” 

“I don’t believe you.” 

“Out of everything going on right now, that’s what you don’t believe?” 

“Let me put this another way. I believe that you’re capable of doing that, I just don’t believe that that’s my normal future. It’s too shitty. I’d never let myself get exorcised.” 

“It’s called fate, Shift. Shit happens. I’m sorry. But that’s the way your story is supposed to go. It’s such a fixed event in fact, that it’s already happened.” 

I stared at her. She didn’t look like she was lying. She didn’t look smug, either. She was deadly serious. Her shoulders were hunched. She wasn’t looking me in the eye. Her neck looked like it was weighed down, staring at the table and ruminating on what had already happened. 

“Well… Shit,” I muttered. 

“I’m here because I wanted this version of you out of all others. This is the one that I need in order to save the world. The one that isn’t stuck to another person. The one that hasn’t become unstable from being chained to another person.” 

“The one that doesn’t hate you for fucking her life up.”

“Sure, we can go with that,” she sighed. “You can spend as much time as you want calling me a bad person for not giving you a perfect life. I hear it every day.” 

I shook my head. “I’m not going to chew you up for that.”

“Why not?” 

I sighed. “Hey, shut up man. Look at me.”

She slowly raised her eyes to meet mine.

“I have had one of the best lives a demon could ask for. Nothing but blood, guts, and energy racing through my veins almost as long as I can remember. Sure, I’ve had bad days. I’ve had days where I go without food, days when I’ve had my ass handed to me, I’ve had Wolf and Batty leave me to go off and do their own thing, but I still enjoy myself. I’m not about to turn around and tell you that you should have done better. Even if you give me a shit future, I guess even then you’re here to bail me out of that. You built this world, right? Humanity?” 

She slowly nodded. 

“Well, fuck, thanks. I love this world. I love what I live in, all of it, the evil, the good. It’s alive. That’s the best part of all of this. I live and breathe in this world. I think I get what you were going for. You build things to be good and bad, and you make an energy surge that causes things to be alive and vibrant. That’s what I revel in. Sure, my future is shit, but it’s give and take, isn’t it? Plus, I can always change it. You don’t control me, just my shitty fate.” She was silent for a second, just staring, waiting for me to say something else. But I’d gave my piece. I sat back in the booth and chewed on the inside of my gum. A shitty future like that… Yeah, that was avoidable. Now that she’d told me, I’d just have to send word to the copy of me she’d make. 

“So you’ll do it?” 

“You’ve twisted my arm, but sure. Yeah. I’ll do it.” She shot up in her seat, but I stopped her with a hand. 

“On a few conditions. One, I want to help pick out the next two people. I don’t want a bunch of idiots with me having to play babysitter.” 

“I have the next one planned out, and I assure you, she is not an idiot. But as for the third… I’ll take your and her advice into account. I can say that much.” 

I snorted. “Sure. Next. I want power.” 

“I already have that covered.” She grinned. “You can have a version of my power. But you’ll have to agree with the others about any major decisions. No world-changing events unless everyone is working together.” 

I groaned. “Fine, whatever. Lastly, I want to be immortal.”

“You’re already immortal.” 

“Truly immortal. Right now I know for a fact that you could kill me if you wanted to. I don’t like that. I want to be immortal to Gods. Maybe that goes hand in hand with the power you’ll be giving me, but I want to make sure. I don’t want to die, ever.” 

“I can’t promise that.” 

I frowned. “Why not? You’re a God.” 

“I am a God but the entire future is not all laid out before me. I don’t actually know what might happen. If I made you perfect in every way, then what if that comes back to bite me in the ass? What if you end up fighting against me or something?” She glowered at her burger. “The last time I made something that strong, it wasn’t pretty. There’s so many what ifs that come with doing something like that. I am done with making things more powerful than me.” 

I groaned. “Fine. I get it. Jeez. Just one last thing then, and I’ll agree.” 

She sighed. Looking up to me, I could really see the dark circles under her eyes. “And what’s that? The universe? An army at your command? Calce at your side again?” She smiled tiredly.

I rolled my eyes. “I want to be able to enjoy this milkshake. Just this once.” 

“That’s it?” She blinked.

“That’s it.” 

She held out her hand. “Done.” 

I stared at it for a moment. Something in the back of my mind was screaming at me. Maybe it was still those instincts, maybe it was something else. Run, it said. Run away. As far away as you can. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll look for a way to escape. 

Turns out that the milkshake was chocolate flavored.


	14. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> MUSE: 
> 
> PLS&TY - Run Wild: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFYYImRNR6U  
Pim Stones - We Have it All: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OHuD3sbOvQ  
Icon For Hire - Venom: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kQGwzR8E80

THE ADVISOR 

In another world, in another life, in another time, there was once a very lonely little girl. A mind like steel and a heart of coal gave her an unquenchable appetite that no library would satisfy. No one knew what was wrong with her. She had a happy family, a mother and father, a young brother who thought that she shone like the sun. And yet none of that could satisfy her. Because there were things out there she needed to know.

She never stopped to care for another soul. She never stopped to think about what she was doing. She learned every fact, every little nugget of knowledge, everything she held clutched tight to her chest like they could help get rid of the void within her heart. 

But all they did was make her lonelier. They simply filled her mind with worthless information she would never apply. She was young, they would tell her. She would learn to care. She would learn how to hug, how to tell someone she loved them, learn to push those books to the side and join the society that begged for her to come into its welcoming arms. 

She hurt too much to wait for something to happen. She must have to learn it for herself. So she searched and searched, and one day she came upon a forest that no one dared tread. She wandered inside with nothing more than a flashlight to guide her way, and it was there she met the Goddess everyone said didn’t exist. 

The Goddess held her hand out to the girl, and offered her a deal with a smile on her face. All the knowledge she would ever want, unwavering logic, unwavering understanding, and unwavering strength. In exchange the girl would forsake her family, and join her sisters of the wood, and live amongst the wolves that howled in the night. 

For all the knowledge the girl had, she couldn’t see anything wrong with taking the Goddess’s hand. Her patron placed amaranth in her hair, and the two made the pact that would haunt her the rest of her life. 

Their hunting grounds spanning the entirety of Great Britain with some sightings as far as Moscow and Turkey. They had one mission, clear as day. 

Kill the enemy that called themselves man. It’s not murder, they would whisper in her ear, it’s the hunting of prey worthy enough for the Goddess. They were a band of hundreds, all at the girls’ side, all there for her every step of the way on her descent into madness. They clutched at each other in the night, they worked alongside with the cold diligence of automatons, carried shimmering bows on their back that they used with expertise and grace, coupled with silvered eyes that were gifts from their patron. They never missed, they never faltered, they never felt cold and they never felt fear. Alongside them, wolves would run, taking down the prey that dared try to run with six arrows in their sides. And the girl learned to listen to the screams with the same chill in her heart as she believed everyone else felt. For this is what her Goddess wanted. 

And for what? The girl had forgotten. She had companions in the hunt. She needed nothing else. The cold, gnawing void in her heart was silent when her eyes were silver. 

The people learned to fear them in the years that followed. National emergencies were called, armies were fought, and yet they stood tall, furred and leathered, their saint rendering them untouchable. And soon the girl stood at the front. She called every shot, every logical move. They systematically cleared out every population they felt required salvation from the curse of man.

Town after town surrendered. They gave their sons and husbands to the terrorists that had brought their nations to their knees, and the hunters took the gift with nothing more than a glance back in their direction. Sacks hung on the faces of the damned as they were led to the clearing where they would see their last. 

The girl unearthed each hood of the village they’d taken most recently, one by one. But the last one grabbed her hand. 

He begged her not to look. To kill him, here and now. She forced him off, ripped the hood off for daring to go against her, and stood face to face with her brother. 

He smiled sadly at her, and her eyes dropped the silver that had kept her sane. 

Too late, she knew what atrocities she had committed. Too late, the void in her heart panged, reminding her that it had never been filled. Not even a lack of emotion could keep it hidden forever. She’d been blinding herself, growing worse and worse until she no longer recognized herself in the mirror. For all the hatred she’d had of the ignorant, she’d become one herself. 

She called for the Goddess that night. 

She pleaded with the apparition, begged on her hands and knees. They’d stayed the execution a day, just long enough for her to state her case. But they wouldn’t wait any longer. 

The girl couldn’t be what her patron wanted. She had been the best soldier the Goddess could have ever wanted. But she had faltered. She was defective. Her silvered eyes had fallen, she had held her brother in front of the others, and now her companions would never follow her. She had seen the pain of the world they had caused with eyes that were too human, and she had realized what she had become. 

The Goddess asked her what she wanted. 

The girl wanted to leave, with her brother, to escape to where the hunters would never touch. To be free.

The Goddess told her she could have one. She could leave, or she could have her brother safe. She was a fair patron, but she was not merciful. What the girl wanted was desertion of a contract that was meant to be held until the end of her life, and that was something the Goddess would not normally entertain.

So in tears, the girl agreed to let her brother free. She knew what her fate would be if she stayed. Letting prey go free, trying to get out of the hunt, all would lead to consequences. Severe ones. But just this once, she wanted to protect what she knew she loved. 

Her patron asked her how important her brother was to her. The girl told her, everything. 

The Goddess told the girl she would make an exception, for her favorite hunter. She would have what she wanted. But her brother would never remember her. No one would. She would be dead in their eyes. For that the only way they and she could keep living is if she were a soul that wandered the earth, neither dead nor alive. This was the only consolation the Goddess deemed her worth having. 

She reminded the girl there would come a time when he would be found again. And when that time came, no amount of pleading would spare his life. Prey was meant to be hunted.

The girl took the Goddess’ hand one last time and held it tight. And that is how the world changed in the blink of an eye with magic that no one believed existed. 

I suppose I should have known from the beginning, shouldn’t I? 

Everyone loves to talk about things they would do in situations if they were themselves, instead of those they take pity on. They explain the follies of man and how untouchable they might be in their stead. Given hindsight and foresight, we could all outwit the Gods. It is something that not even the omniscient can permit themselves to have. Humans are just so difficult to comprehend. Illogical needs and illogical thoughts lead to illogical conclusions that make little sense with the context allotted to the arbiters of justice. Perhaps there is a God out there that knows the answers to all our futures. I would pity them. Imagine the storms inside their head.

I am no arbiter myself, though, let that be known. I am simply a girl, sitting at a coffee shop, listening to the sound of the television. Blurry images of women in silver and fur retreat into a forest as audio tries to commentate alongside it. The footage cuts abruptly when an arrow is launched at the holder of the camera. One can hear the sound of it hitting its target directly, but the new station saw fit to cut to black before the damage could be known. The feed cuts to a woman dressed in red sitting at a desk attempting to describe the situation with her own grating opinion, explain that the recording was taken only hours ago. The man beside her nods along. His face is pale and devastated, but she doesn’t look much better. 

The opinion is not what matters. What matters is that footage was from the Russian border. I’d always told them to avoid the place. But perhaps Nadia got it in her head to use technology to suit their needs. She was never above the sacrifice of tradition for the sake of convenience. If they got the snow mobiles she’d been asking for, they’d be able to hit Moscow in less than a day. From there, I couldn’t say. Whatever they were planning, it was of no business to me. It was away from England, and that was all that mattered.

The news is always depressing. But the coffee was not much better. Acrid, and burned. The taste leaves one wanting on the tongue. The biscotti was dry even by the standard of Italian cookie, and to dip it in the coffee itself was to do it a disservice. The crumbled pieces still whirled around in the cup from the last time I tried it. But I suppose it is better not to complain. I do quite a bit of complaining these days.

It was not the subpar fare, but for the silence of the shop that I was here. Other than the audio of the television, the world was silent today, as it had been in the past several weeks since the curfew. Calming. It allowed one the opportunity to write. 

“How are you today, miss?” The server standing above me looked down with a tentative smile. I quietly sighed, then pushed pastry and journal to the side to give him my undivided attention. 

“Yes, I would like more coffee, thank you.” I nudged my mug over to him. He was somewhat deflated as he filled my cup.

“I see you here all the time, you know,” he drawled. “You always seem rather lonely here by yourself.” 

“I am content as I am.” 

He was reevaluating his strategy, tapering the filling of my cup to allow him a few extra moments beside my table. 

“Do you like listening to the news?” He asked. 

“No,” I said. 

“Oh? I see you here all the time in front of the television, I thought you would have liked keeping up to date. You seem like the type to want to know what’s going on in the world.” 

“The fellating of killers on screens across the world has never been on my list of attractions.” 

“Oh… I see.” He was young, perhaps that was why he didn’t leave. He placed the empty jug on the table and pulled up a wooden chair so he could sit in front of me. With a white, blinding smile, he dipped his head down to my level. The green apron fluttered in his lap. As he leaned forward, he subtly flexed the muscles that seemed to bulge out of his skin-tight t-shirt in a visceral, inauthentic manner. I wondered briefly how many hours he spent at the gym per day. Most likely not as many as he did begging for steroids. “My name’s Aiden, by the way.” 

“A pleasure.” I turned back to the television. The UN frowning upon a terrorist organization was not exactly going to solve anything, but I supposed the governments had the spirit. The outcry from the public had been more than enough to get their attention. And then, I suppose, there was the murder. That tended to have an effect on things, when people died. 

“Do you have a name?” 

“Most likely.” 

He laughed. “You’re so interesting, you know. Every day, ten on the dot, you show up. And then you’re gone at eight. The same scarf, the same clothes. You’re like a mystery.” He eyed me with a lingering smile. “And you never say anything. What are you writing in that?” 

I pushed the pad of paper further down until it hit the pastry. “Words.” 

“And what would these words be about?”

“Do you have work you should be doing?” I asked.

“Well love, I would, but this place is about as busy as a graveyard. The curfew’s messed up every business that isn’t in the thick of London. I don’t really care, get paid by the hour and all that. As long as I’m here, I’m content. Nice and warm, all the coffee I could ask for, not to mention eye candy.” He pointed at the television. “And look, the hunters are heading in the opposite direction. UK is going to be just fine, I bet. Everyone’s worried over nothing. So much fighting amongst everyone, and no one’s ever actually checked what’s going on. Those bitches are going be sprayed with Russian nukes, I’d bet my bloody paycheck.” 

“I see.” I took a quiet bite of the biscotti. 

“Yeah, those birds won’t last long. Even if the EU didn’t give a shit, those Russians aren’t about to let something like that slip by.” He sighed. “I’m a bit gutted I never get to see one of them in person, though. I almost wish those horror stories were real. Imagine if one of them really did slip past the border check and get in, like they were talking about online. One of them up close, instead of those grainy images...” 

“What do you mean by that?” 

“I mean, they’re hunters, right? People are calling them perfect. They must be beautiful. But I guess not as beautiful as you,” he laughed. “I’m sorry if I’m making you nervous.” He scratched the back of his neck. “See, this is what made me so interested in you. Everyone is so worked up, but you’re here just doing the same thing every day. Not even worried about everything going on online. I can’t even surf Facebook without getting tagged in mates prowling the town looking for “hunter bitches.” Like it’s some kind of game to string up a couple of stone-faced women.” He rolled his eyes. “I’m not like those blokes. I don’t what kind of sick joke they think it is.”

“I would rather not chat, if that’s alright with you.”

“I don’t mean anything by that, sorry if you feel uncomfortable at all.” He raised his hands defensively. “But I swear, I’m not looking for anything here. Not here to accuse you, either, I’m sure you’re a sweet girl. Really sweet.” He looked down at me. “I’m just curious, you know? Could I at least have a name?” 

“No.”

“Not even an initial?” He grinned. 

“No.” 

“Come on, you’ve been here for months now, I’d love to know at least something about you. I feel like we’re on speaking terms by now. Just you and me, stuck in this back-end coffee shop all alone, doing nothing but staring at the television together. Everyone’s holed up in their homes, but we’re here, able to live our lives. See, men and women don’t all have to hate each other. We can be friends.”

I sipped at the poor excuse for coffee and pulled the pad of paper back in front of me to give him the cue to leave. “I would rather be left alone, thank you.” 

“Fine, I’ll leave well enough alone. But I’m still curious as to what you’re writing there. Is it a book? A screenplay?” 

“It’s nothing important.” 

“Oh, it’s alright. I know you’re shy, but there’s no harm in a little sharing, is there?”

“I do not want to share.” 

“Love, you can’t just bring something in, scribble on it constantly, and not expect me to be interested. Here, hand it over.” 

He drew his hand across the table to grab it, and I grabbed his hand before he could make it halfway.

The grip was iron. I could see his reaction. At first it was pain, as though he had dropped his hand in boiling water. And then it was fear. He turned slowly to look at my face, and there was the recognition on his face. A whimper died in his throat. He was staring right into my eyes, and I couldn’t look away. I couldn’t help but analyze every twitch, every movement, every opportunity to stab him in the heart. In that moment, I knew exactly what I needed to do to incapacitate my prey. I gripped his hand a moment longer, then let it go, and let him be. Control. What had I told myself about control? Clearly, I needed it drilled more firmly into my skull. 

He moved quickly away, clambering out of his seat. “You’re…” 

“I’m not.” 

“Then what were those eyes!” He squeaked. His chiseled muscles were now shivering in fear as he slowly backed away from me. 

“I promise you, they are not what you think they are.” 

“You get the hell away from me!” 

“I apologize for any inconvenience I have caused you. I’ll see myself out.” I stood quickly from my chair as I collected the long grey coat and journal. I could see him running out of the corner of my eye to the register where I was certain the emergency phone hung. 

Buckling the coat around me and carefully adjusting the multicolored scarf, I took my small knapsack and left the third store I’d tried hiding in for the past month. He was only starting to type the number in as I left. I knew I would have a few minutes before the police would get there. By then, blending in with the crowd would have been easy. But it was regrettable. I’d picked that café for more than just the ambience, the lack of security cameras too leant itself to my convenience. 

The excuse for snow in London was raining down today. It wasn’t quite enough to be worth an umbrella. But the chill went straight through my bones. I pulled the coat closer around myself.

A few cars streaked past on the two lane road. The sidewalks were empty. I walked silently through the slush kicked up by tires. My shoes were stained from salt and mud. Silent, as I walked as quickly as I could away from the establishment. The wind whipped at my cheeks. The cold dug right through my bones. It couldn’t have been less than negative three, but it felt like thirty below. 

I kept my mouth tightly shut. My eyes on the road ahead. My mind on survival. 

There were footsteps behind me. 

I moved to the side to allow the three sets of shoes to continue. But when they passed, I caught a glimpse of them, and I faltered. They must have been businessmen in their suits with their briefcases. Chatting amiably amongst each other, arguing about the state of the weather, complaining about the curfew and the public transport being shut down. None of them looked particularly upset about it, though. The camaraderie that came with having to brave the elements together kept them all perked up and joyful. One of them in particular, cleanshaven with speckles of grey in his hair and smiling eyes, he was the one that made my heart stutter. There were lines to his mouth that grew deeper when he smiled. He clapped the shoulder of one of his friends, and the hand was nearly as big as his face. 

I watched them go without moving. Their chatter was eventually lost in the wind, and so was I, standing with my feet in the snow, feeling the wind rip into my bones like a wild animal worrying its teeth into flesh. I only found myself when I heard the sound of sirens in the distance. Slowly, I began to plod along again, staring at the back of the man’s head. I wondered where he was going. If he had a wife and children. If he always smiled like that when he was among friends. How warm he must have felt. The way he carried himself seemed so confident. 

It was ridiculous, the kinds of things an illogical brain could come up with. The mind may wander by with any fanciful notion and call it an epiphany. It focuses so deeply on a touch, a smile, a breath, and it comes to believe things that the rest of the mind knows is entirely ludicrous, and entirely unhelpful to the body’s survival. Instinct, no matter how little value we place on it within our society, will transcend every piece of literature, every philosopher’s doctrine, and every piece of popular culture. We are all animals in the end, hunters or the hunted, the only thing separating us being whether or not we have a weapon in our hand. 

But this was bouncing around in my head was more than ridiculous instinct. It was an active handicap in my ability to form proper thought and I have to say, I was not fond of it. I made sure my face was covered before I let my eyes go silver. I could see properly again, and realized I still wasn’t nearly far away enough from that café. I needed more time, and a place to hide. The crowd I’d been expecting to hide in was minimal. Even as I travelled downtown, the weather and the curfew left the streets abnormally barren. If I could just make it to Wembley Park, it could give me an opportunity to appear innocent. But Harrow was a big place. Knowing the proper streets wasn’t always enough in this weather. 

I passed by a police car, and felt a shiver go down my spine. It was heading for the café. Only a few blocks more, and I would be out of their sight and mind. There was already a larger group around me, though this small handful could hardly be called a crowd. Still, I could easily slip away if I kept to myself. Perhaps I wouldn’t even need to make it to the park. 

“Oi.” A hand grabbed me by the shoulder. I managed to drop my eyes before they got a look at my face. 

There were evil grins on their faces. One of them spat on the ground while the other kept a firm hand that slowly wrapped itself around my neck that wrapped in the warm woolen scarf. 

“You one of them hunters, aren’t ya?” 

“No,” I said.

He laughed. “She’s lying, lads, look at her. You ever see a girl with a face like that? Bet you’re gorgeous with silver eyes.” The man leaned in close, and I ducked out the way. He hadn’t even realized his hand had been thrown to the side until he was looking at it and I was three feet away from them. 

One of them snorted at his friend. The three of them were in their twenties and drunk enough to smell like rubbing alcohol. I wrinkled my noise as the leader pushed the one that had dared laugh at him, then threw back his hair and went back to me. 

“Why don’t you prove it then, love? Show us those eyes of yours more clearly.” 

“I would rather not,” I said. The blond laughed and drank from a bottle covered in a paper bag. 

“She’d rather not,” he teased. “Look at her. Even acts like one. D’you see the newest video online? Man got ripped in half by one of their wolves. Shit was brutal, I’m telling you. And the girl just stood behind it and watched until it was over. They found his phone three hours later. She never once changed her expression, no smile, no frown. Just those silver eyes.” 

“I saw that, I saw that,” the youngest one answered, nodding his head emphatically as he tried to get the bottle that the blond was hoarding. The man pushed him off, and the two of them began to squabble. 

The leader that grabbed me looked me over. I stared him down. His stance was offensive, clearly in a position to move forward at any opportunity. But it was weak. He wasn’t used to fighting, and the alcohol had given him a slight wobble that he didn’t notice himself. “Did you ever see that other clip on the coast?” He called back to his friends. 

“Which? There’s loads.” 

“Off Cardiff, I think. Maybe Penarth?”

“I thought the news was saying they never hit Penarth.” 

“Maybe it was that fishing village.” 

“No, it had to be Penarth. There’s a few places around that, but they defaced one of the old landmarks there, it was on the news. They wiped out almost all the men there.” The man took a step towards me, I took one back. Even without the eyes, I was acutely aware of where he was leading me. In between two factory buildings, where a few trash cans were the only things that I could see. The small crowd I was banking on was already dispersing. Those left knew better than to interact with drunkards looking for a row. The seclusion between the two old brick buildings gave them ample opportunity to do what they liked, and the man in front of me was just sober enough to know that. 

“There was a bunch of footage from Penarth,” he muttered to himself. “They were trying to do some kind of documentary on it since they destroyed a couple of historical sites, so they got quality cameras. Even a lineup shot of a bunch of the girls before they led a charge through one of the nearby townships. There was this girl, you see.” He wandered closer, and the two behind him got the hint. The blond held the bottle like a mace as they approached, and I continued to back up. There wasn’t much room left behind me. But I was out of the windchill. Now there was only a dull ache from the cold and wet. Though even that clung to my bones. “She had brown hair, and this weird look to her. Like, dead fish eyes. You know, mum taught me to be polite, but I have to say, you fit the bill nicely.” 

“That wouldn’t make any sense,” I said, simultaneously looking between them for any possible exit. “If I was a hunter, why would I be here alone? They’re all the way in Russia by now. Just let me go home. Please.” 

The three of them flinched. “Even your voice,” he said. “It’s soulless. Monotone. Makes my skin crawl. Why don’t you just give it up, and show us your eyes? Your real eyes.”

“I apologize if I don’t sound particularly afraid of you.”

“Well you should be. A lone girl in the dark of the evening, with three men cornering her?” He sneered. “Even if you’re not one of them hunters, maybe we should send a sign so they know not to mess with us.” 

“I am afraid that won’t be possible.” 

The one with the bottle blinked. “Why’s that?” 

“I have no interest in being made a martyr. I would rather just leave. So I think I shall.”

The leader of the pack growled, then rushed forward. “Listen you bloody bitch.” He went for a side swipe to my cheek, and I crouched. 

His fist connected with air. The force of his punch sent him sprawling on his side when he tried to overcorrect himself. Quickly, he was on his feet again, swearing up a storm and egging on his friends to join him as he kicked in all directions that were not mine. The two ran to join him. The one with the bottle used it as club meant for my head, and I caught it in my hand. My grip was stronger than his. 

I wrenched it out of his grasp and threw it to the side just as the second flurried his blows without thought to defend his friend. I pushed the now bottle-less man in front of me and he beat the man for a solid few seconds before he had realized what happened. By then, the first one had rounded back on my side with a knife in his hand. 

“Bitch,” he swore as he jabbed at my side. I danced from the left to the right in step with him. Every stab in my direction was quickly avoided in a waltz. He tried to kick my shin in frustration, but my legs moved in time with his. When he had enough, he grabbed for my neck, and I jumped over his head. I used his shoulders for support as I heaved myself over his body and landed on my feet with a faint ache in my ankles. Whirling around, I was just in time to catch the next attempt at a fist from the bottle-less one that had finally regained his senses. He looked at me, at the fist I’d blocked with a hand, then gulped as he swiped at my legs. I caught his leg with my own and sent him flying back onto the wet snow. The other friend tripped over the man as he went running for me. He had his arms out, a bulldozer trying to grapple me to the ground. I waited until the exact moment required. One and two thirds of a second and I moved to the side to let the bull smash his own head against the brick and mortar wall of the alley. 

“You are one,” the leader growled. “I can see your eyes. They’re silver.” His hands were shaking with the knife cutting into his own palm. Faint groans from the man on the snow in front of me informed me he was still conscious. He did not require additional subduing. Intimidation would be the only requirement to end this encounter, if I worked quickly. 

“Perhaps they are,” I said. “And perhaps you will still leave with your life if you leave me alone.” 

“Why would you let me go if you’re one of those terrorists?” He cried out. “You’re just like the others.” 

Perhaps I miscalculated. I always did, where it concerned emotion. 

The knife went first as he ran. He kept it in front of him like a spear rising from his abdomen, his hands staining his shirt red with blood. One second, and I would move. Point five. Point one. 

I moved, and his rage filled eyes followed me. He may have thought I miscalculated when he managed to follow what he presumed was a feint. It wasn’t. I allowed him to follow me. The rage left him entirely open. His stance had been offensive and weak from the beginning. He pierced outward, and I ducked into a split that turned into a sweep of my legs to knock down his. He fell, and the knife fell with him.

I got up smoothly and wiped down the dress pants that been stained with salt and slush. The knapsack hadn’t opened, thankfully. The journal was still safely inside. I shouldered the bag, slowly stretched my neck, and let out a quiet breath. Three subdued, and no one seriously harmed. Regrettably, it involved physical interaction on my own part. I’d have to work on that. 

I looked the three of them over. One out cold pressed up against the wall, one of them still groaning and holding his shoulder that had connected with the stone road, and one- 

One bleeding out from where his knife had fallen into his own stomach. No, upon closer inspection, it seems he managed to stab himself in the lung. I crouched down with a growing pit in my stomach as I looked over the wound. It would have done no good to remove the object. He was barely breathing. Perhaps he had a phone in his pocket. 

I searched, but I could find nothing but a wallet and a name. Nothing on any of his friends either. The man was dying, and I was just standing here. There had to be something I could do. I kept looking out from the alley, searching the road for any sign of someone and knowing that drawing any attention to myself would only lead to my own demise. But I couldn’t let him suffer here. 

I paced. I kept returning to the man, checking his pulse, and feeling my stomach flip as the heartbeat got gradually thinner. Turning him onto his side wasn’t an option. As long as he wasn’t moving, he wasn’t shoving that thing deeper inside. But as it was, he was still choking on his own blood. What kind of person didn’t carry a cellphone with him? Did he come from a bar? Was there somewhere nearby with a payphone? Was there worth in risking finding one? Could they track my location? Perhaps leaving and asking someone to call was worth it. Perhaps moving him out to the front of the alley would cause others to take notice. But then, no one would care about another dead drunk. People were animals.

“I thought you didn’t kill people anymore.” 

I turned to the girl in red and black standing in the front of the alley. Her hair was brown, the tips stained black. Her face was pale, and there was a thin, wry smile on her face. I narrowed my eyes. 

“Do you have access to a phone? This man has been stabbed.”

“He attacked you,” she said. 

“It wasn’t a fair fight from the beginning. He doesn’t deserve to die.” 

“That’s interesting, coming from a hunter of Artemis.” The girl approached me, and I noticed for the first time the lack of coat or snow boots. She had no goosebumps as she knelt down beside the man and checked his pulse. 

“I did not intend to harm him. I was merely trying to subdue the three of them. I don’t wish for him to die.” 

“What would you give me if I saved him?” She asked me. She looked up to me, and my heart went cold. 

“I do not make deals.” 

She smiled. “Fair.” Her eyes went back to looking over the puddle of blood and snow. She rolled her shoulders back, then pushed him onto his side. 

“Wait, you shouldn’t-” She wrapped a hand around the knife, rubbed the handle, then pulled it out. I stepped forward and stopped when I noticed the lack of blood gushing from the wound. The wound itself sealed as soon as the metal had left the insertion. If it weren’t for the blood already on the ground, or the hole in the thin coat, I would have assumed it had never happened. The man was as pale as the grave, but after a moment, his chest rose and fell. It was faint. But he was alive. 

The girl stood up and inspected the knife in her hand. Then she threw it down beside the man. “I’m not a fan of knives,” she said. “You can cut yourself too easily on them.” 

“What are you?” She looked at me, and smiled. 

“It’s a little cold here, isn’t it? Perhaps we should find some place else to talk.” 

“I am in no mood to follow a God wherever they wish for me to go.” 

“You’re smart.” She walked over to me until she was peering up at me. I analyzed her movements. Slow. Easy. Confident. But the faintest of wavers. She was hiding something that she needed. That was nothing new. “I’m sorry to bother you,” she sighed. “But I need something. It’s not what you think. I’m a different sort of God.” 

“There’s no such thing as a different sort of God.” I stared her down. “Gods are all the same. Childish, believing their way is correct and all others are going to die.” 

“That’s why I need you.” Her smiled widened. “I’m not here to make you into something you hate. I know you swore an oath of pacifism. I’m not here to make you break that promise.” 

“I do not believe you,” I muttered. I gripped the sash of my knapsack tighter as I made a move to leave. 

She took my hand. When I turned around, she was quiet. 

“Sorry,” she murmured. “I just need you to hear me out. That’s all.”

“Let go of me, God. I do not associate with the likes of you.”

She grit her teeth and held me tighter. 

“I’m not that sort of God,” she muttered. 

“You are a broken record.” 

“I’m human.” She gazed at me. “Use your eyes. Realize what I’m saying for yourself. You’re smart. I know you figure it out.” 

I watched her. Analyzed her. Looked for any speck of mischief, lie, or attempt to use me for sport. Her eyes held far too much immaturity. Her legs shivered, not from the cold, but from fear. Her face was twisted in a grim smile, as if she were waiting for the next thing that would be another load upon her shoulders. She carried a yoke that drove her down. The flicking of her eyes down to the left, repeatedly, was a sign of nervousness. Normally I would say she were lying, but Gods didn’t let human psychology get in the way of their lies. 

“What could a God be afraid of?” I muttered. 

“Something stronger.” She smiled hesitantly, and drew closer until she had found my other hand. She squeezed them tight. “Your hands are cold.” 

“I am always cold.”

“You weren’t always cold,” she muttered. 

“No, I wasn’t. Leaving a God’s service demands sacrifice.” I watched her silently. She didn’t like people taller than her. She wouldn’t look me in the eye when we were so close. She kept looking at her shoes. Her eyes were read, and faded with dark circles under them. I narrowed my eyes when I noticed the faint glow of something drifting away from the edge of her pupil. Color. 

“So what kind of God are you?” I asked her. 

“I made your world.” 

“The pantheon made this world.” 

“I made the pantheon.” She bit her lip. “I made everything. All of creation. All of it.” 

“How old are you?” 

“Twenty?” She laughed nervously. “I don’t know anymore. Maybe younger. I lost track a while ago.” 

“You look younger.”

“I choose to look this way.”

“Why?”

“I… I don’t know. So you’ll listen to me?” 

“I wouldn’t have listened to you regardless of your face.” I dropped her hands. “So where is it you wish to go?” I turned towards the exit of the alley. “If you are going to lead me somewhere, I would prefer it sooner rather than later. If I am to hear you out, I would rather not be taken into custody before you can finish your sentence.” 

“But you just said you weren’t going to listen to me.” 

“If you can bring me somewhere safe, I suppose I can listen for a minute.” 

She brightened. “I’ll take you somewhere you like, then.” 

I blinked, and we were in the middle of a popular coffee chain. 

The scent of burned artisanal beans filled my nostrils. We were surrounded by quiet chatter and the tapping of laptops with manicured nails, but not one of the dozens of customers looked our way. I turned around and around to try and get my bearings. But it didn’t seem as though any of them particularly cared. I furrowed my brows, then turned back to the God. 

“A powerful God,” I admitted. 

“Thanks.” She sat down at a table and motioned for me to do the same. Her exhausted body seemed to bend into the curves of the metal, and her arms gave out as she allowed her head to fall on the crumb covered counter. I silently followed into the seat in front of her. 

“I find this hard to believe.”

“Me too, sometimes.” She sighed. “Tell me, what kind of coffee do you like?”

“Black. And not this place.” 

“Maybe I should have asked first.” 

“You should have.” 

“Sorry.” 

I watched her silently. She rubbed her cheeks, then slowly sat back up so she could look at me. The shivering had stopped for her, but her hands were still unsteady. 

“So. I’m gonna make this quick. You already know what I am, and I don’t want to mince words. I need help preventing the apocalypse.” 

“I believe it’s a bit too late for that. Terrorism has grown rampant over the past few years. Zeus and Poseidon are gearing up for a reaction.” 

She sighed. “No. I wish it were just that. This is bigger than a pantheon bringing humans into their problems. I’m not even from this dimension. This crosses all worlds. Including yours.” 

“I see. Perhaps I should have a cup of coffee first.” One appeared in front of me in the next moment as though it had always existed there, still steaming. I wrinkled my nose at first, but upon further tasting I was pleasantly surprised to find that it didn’t match the low quality of the establishment. 

She mumbled around her arm. “I’m sorry. I’d be more elaborate, perhaps slower. But I’m just… I’ve already done this once, and I’m tired. I just came back from having to deal with him. He’s going to end the world the minute he figures out what kind of power he has over me. I can’t even pretend to be some smart all-knowing character anymore. I’ve done this. I’ve made something terrible. I just feel done, now.” 

“I see.” 

“And I can’t even kill him, you know? I have this stupid power I can’t control totally, he’s the only one that can keep it in place. My subconscious won’t even let him die. Even if this did go as I planned, and you do help, I… I don’t want him dead.” 

“I see.” 

“I’m glad you get it, at least.” 

I sipped my coffee. “It would help if I had any semblance of an idea of what you were talking about. I don’t even have your name.” 

“E.”

“Is that a name?” 

“It is if I want it to be.” 

“I see.”

“Do you?” She asked me.

“Usually. I have eyes.” 

She frowned. I took another sip of my coffee. 

“I’m tired,” she said. “Do you have to make this any harder?” 

“You’re the God that’s come to me to tell me you want something from me. Perhaps you should have some of your own coffee. It does wonders.” 

“I didn’t mean to insult you or make you feel nervous if that’s what happened.”

“It is unlikely that anyone ever means to do anything. But I am not nervous nor insulted.” I watched the girl silently for a moment. She was thinking just as much as I was. But what about, that was more difficult to ascertain. “It is difficult for a person to lie to me,” I continued. “But not impossible. From where I stand, you are a child that seems to have been given far too much power. How exactly, I am uncertain. But if I am to take what you say at face value, then I am looking at the creator of all dimensions. Am I right?”

She was pretending to be bashful. But she soaked up pride. It was easy to see. “Right.” 

“And now you are looking for a way out of a problem created from your own making. This creature of yours, I’m supposing you made him. And due to whatever emotional problems associated with your behavior, you can not have him killed. You can not kill him yourself. And you can not even begin to fight back against him. Correct?” 

She smiled in her exhaustion. “This is why I picked you.”

“I haven’t decided anything yet.” 

“I know,” she sighed. 

“What is it you want me to do, exactly? I will not fight your battles for you. And I am uncertain if I can solve this situation of yours on a strategic level. It seems above my pay grade.” 

“Hold my mind.” 

“Your what?” 

“My mind. My logos. My thought. My Ego. I need three perfect people to be able to hold fractions of me that will keep me safe and non-existent in the eyes of the creature. If I get the right people, they can keep everything far more stable than I can as myself. That’s the only way that he won’t have power over me. He won’t be able to influence me, and the world can remain safe in your three hands.”

“He of course being this monster of yours.” 

“The Seventeenth.” 

“I see.” I looked down at the coffee, and wished there was biscotti to go with it. Something sweet should always go with something bitter. I drank deeply from the mug, then let the heat try to warm my hands. It did little. “What would this do to me?” 

“Nothing. I mean, not nothing, but nothing bad. Powers like mine. A connection to the other two. You wouldn’t change as a person. There would be no pain, I wouldn’t do anything to you. My mind would just be there, floating inside. An ephemeral piece of a God.” 

“And if I say no?” 

“Then the world ends.” 

“Then it appears I am not being given much of a choice.”

She grimaced. “You have a choice. It’s just, I’m not sure I’ll be able to find another person like you. So there’s a high likelihood that without you, this plan can’t work. And then existence ceases to be. And the Seventeenth gets what he wants.” 

“Have the others already been picked?”

“Mostly. The last one I’m having difficulty with.” She nudged my coffee mug with a finger. “They’re supposed to be the rest of me. I have the power of creation taken care of, and with you, I have my mind as well. But now I’m not sure what else I have left. The other one that I chose before you, she suggested someone similar to her. She’s a difficult person, very extravagant and powerful. I don’t think two of her would create a proper balance. I want to make this as stable as I can. And if it’s not, then this all falls apart. He finds out too soon, and the world will truly fall to pieces.” 

I pulled my mug closer to my hands, and thought. She watched me from across the table impatiently.

“I would have to leave,” I said. “I have family to take care of.” 

“Family you can’t even see, because of your contract.” Her eyes flicked to the knapsack on my back, and a sad smile broke out across her face. “Why would you want to write down your life story? Who would read it?”

“It’s not simply a life story. It’s a report of events from within the Hunters of Artemis. If this ever ended, it would be a helpful addition to the small archives of knowledge they currently have on the subject.”

“But that’s never going to happen, is it?” It was more a statement than a question. “This war isn’t going to end. It’s going to get worse. And these Gods are going to tear this world apart.” 

“I suppose it is not a question now, since you have said it. And an all-powerful God of creation can never be wrong.” The coffee was getting cold from my hands.

“Well, I know the end to your story if you choose to stay here.” A biscotti on a plate appeared in front of me, and coffee heated back up to piping hot before my eyes. “It’s not a good one. And… I’m sorry, about that.”

“Gods do not apologize. They are Gods.”

“I am human.” 

“And a God.” 

“I think the human part is pretty important. It’s the reason everything is as fucked as it is.” 

“Perhaps,” I said. I nibbled on the biscotti. Almond and orange. 

We both went quiet. And I continued to think. 

“I don’t know how you manage to do that,” she muttered. 

“Do what?” 

“Move from topic to topic that fast. You’re like a supercomputer.” 

“I’m weighing my options. Are you looking inside my head?”

“Just a little bit. Do you mind?”

“There is no point in trying to argue with a God. They do as they please.” 

“But what do you want?” 

I watched her. “What I want?” 

“Yes.” 

“I want my brother.” 

She bit her lip. “Oh.”

“Is that too difficult an ask?” 

She leaned back in the chair, and sighed. “It… Theoretically isn’t. But if I were to do that, a lot of other things would come loose. I can keep him safe in my world, if you like. I can save all that I can. If you agree to help me.”

“This is sounding more and more like a contract.” 

“It’s only because I need your help so badly,” she said in exasperation. “I don’t know what else to do anymore. If you say no, then there’s no one else. You’re the only one I could find. You’re perfect for this job. You don’t even have to change anything about yourself. Just stay the same, stay with the other two, keep the world safe – what were you even doing here before?” 

“Drinking coffee.”

“Exactly.”

“So I would be drinking coffee in another world, with two strangers.”

She rubbed her face. “Please. Please. Pretty please.” 

“I’ve never heard a God beg before.” 

“I am still human.”

“As you keep reminding me.” 

“Please?”

“Will you alleviate the chill in my veins?” 

“Done.”

“Will you keep my brother and the rest of my family safe?”

“Absolutely done.”

“And who are these people that I am to spend the rest of my miserable life with?”

“A demon and we’re still working on that last part,” she said. I raised an eyebrow. “I promise the demon is nice.” I sipped my coffee. “I have her house trained. She only bites a little.” 

“Only a little.”

“Yes.”

I let out a slow breath. “You need one final person.”

She nodded, then her eyes slowly widened as she realized what I’d said.

“So you’ll do it.”

“I’ll do it.” 

She slumped onto the table in exhaustion. “God, that was easy… I thought you would take more convincing. I was prepared for a lot more problems. I assumed you’d try a loophole.”

“As long as my family is safe, I am not required to fight, I no longer have a constant chill in my veins, and I am not altered by you in any negative way, I can agree to this contract. However, I reserve the right to back out if I believe that the conditions of my comfort or my family’s comfort are not being met. Is this understood?” 

“There’s the loophole,” she muttered.

“I said, is that understood?”

“Yes.” 

I sighed, and let my shoulders rest. “You have a demon, and a human. I assume the demon is from a Christian tradition?”

“Technically. I ported that over for nostalgia’s sake.” 

“Then would you not want an angel to balance it out?" She stared at me. I raised a finger when I realized she wasn’t about to speak. “You called me your Ego. I would assume this demon is the Id, in control of your base instincts. So would this last choice not be your Superego? As antiquated as Freud is, it can suit your needs for a picture of what it is you wish to convey. You claim that all the “rest” is poured into that last person. But have you thought of what that “rest” is?”

“Just… the rest.”

“What are you, without power and logic?”

“I don’t know.” 

“Emotion.” I took a long drink of my coffee. “You are seeking someone capable of holding your emotion. Superego. I would recommend looking for someone with empathic abilities. Of course, I wouldn’t know anything about angels, so take that piece of advice with a grain of salt. But if I am to deal with a demon that contains within them all of your creative power, I’d like someone less difficult to deal with on my other side.” 

She sat back thoughtfully in her chair. “I’m not used to emotion, much. I wouldn’t know what to look for. I’m not even sure something like that is important.”

“I believed the same, for quite a while. But I have found emotion to be the most important part of the human condition. Only a fool ignores it.” I looked down at my mug. “It is incalculable. No matter how much I try to find ways to quantify feelings, I never seem to find an answer.”

She smiled at me from across the table. “I think you’ll be perfect for this.”

“I think it is too early to tell.” I stirred my mug of coffee with the biscotti, then paused when she was getting up to leave. “One more thing.”

“What?” She froze halfway out of her seat. 

“I would like my name scrubbed from the records.”

“What? Why?”

“If I am to take employment with you, I would like my identity kept secret. I understand I would not be in the same dimension anymore. Regardless, I believe it is important to keep my name out of the equation when dealing with my associates.”

She scrunched her eyebrows. “Then what name do you want?”

“You may call me the Advisor.”

“Advisor?” She smiled to herself. “I like it. Not too far off from the old name. it works.”

“Thank you. Also, a way back to my apartment, if you please.” I raised the mug of coffee. “And at least two more cups of this.”

Meetings can sometimes be described as fated. I do not believe in fate. Unfortunately, it seems to believe in me. As much as I wish that this world weren’t so connected, so carefully weaved in a spiders web of ideals and tearful plot lines, as much as I wish that people could live their normal, boring lives in peace, I will never be able to change the very fabric of reality. 

And now, it seems, I am a part of the problem.


	15. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I will never be happy with this chapter. 
> 
> MUSE: Of Monsters and Men - King and Lionheart: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A76a_LNIYwE  
Whitney Woerz - LOVE ME NOT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIsNxiTAM3U  
Katy Sky - Monsters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnqRe6r5bz8

CASSIDY 

There was once an angel. 

Blessed and beautiful, the creature was a personal favorite of God’s. The creature played the harp, danced for the God, sang His glory and His love. Among the others, there was no jealousy. For angels do not feel the same as humanity. They live to please their creator, for basking in His light is all they live for. Their Father is all that matters to them. And that is what this angel believed. 

Until one day, this angel decided she wanted to explore. 

It was a strange notion. It had never occurred to the creature to want to leave. The world they lived in was beautiful. They had no reason to want to find what lay beyond the clouds. Their Father loved their music, their voice and their song. He asked them to sing again and again. And she did. She always did.

But then the angel got bored. 

She’d never been bored before. She asked her brothers and sisters, and none of them could even fathom the idea. What made them so strange and wrong? They urged the creature to come to their Father, and to ask for help. 

When asked by their Father, He cautioned the angel to take heed. He was worried for the creature. Perhaps there were other forces at work. Already fearful that His favorite son had fallen from grace, He could not stand the thought of losing His favorite daughter as well. He kept her close, and He kept her safe.

But it would not leave her alone. 

She stared at the clouds and wondered what could lay beyond. Floating from platform to platform on wings as white as snow, she and pondered about the world that their Father had created. She was but a simple angel herself. She was no throne, power, or virtue. She could only play an instrument and sing a tune, and was barred from beholding all of God’s grace and creation below. But down there, was humanity. A strange foreign concept she had an urge to see.

She was a pretty bird locked in a cage, built for the amusement of her Father. Day after day, she wandered closer to the bars and tried to peek through. And every day, she wandered back away from the walls to the center of her cage, where her Father would be waiting for her to serenade Him once again. He kept her safe, of course. He said it was because Her loved her. And He did. He loved what she could give Him. 

But then, one day, the cage door was opened. It came in the form of a storm. Wandering too far from her Father’s throne, the creature was shocked to see the lightning in the distance. It was drawing close too quickly. She could not fly away fast enough. The poor angel tried to fly back as fast as she could, but she was sucked into the wind. Safety was just out of reach. The creature tried calling out to her brothers and sisters, but her beautiful voice was drowned out in the rain and thunder. She was battered from side to side and turned black and blue from the winds. The lightning caught her wings and her world turned to fire. Every inch of her burned. She was a piece of ash falling to the ground. 

And she fell hard. 

Fire, ash, coal, brimstone, all she could smell was fire. The earth rose up to meet her, and swallowed her whole. 

That was the first time she died. 

She awoke to the face of a basset hound with a soul the color of chocolate. He took her hand, and he offered her safety. But he spoke words she didn’t understand. He covered her in a blanket, and for the first time she saw that her wings had burned to nothing. 

She didn’t know how to explain to him what she was. Because he was nice, and he was old, and he saw her for the little girl that she was. She wanted to tell him that his soul was pretty, that he was warmer than the fire he put her beside when they returned to his little home, and that the son that was about her age had a beautiful blue aura that matched his eyes. But she had to learn those words. And by the time she knew how to say them, she realized that these things weren’t something that they were supposed to know. Her eyes saw things she shouldn’t see. Her mind knew things she shouldn’t know. By the time she had learned words, she knew she didn’t need them. Because once you become family, all you ever really need to say them is that you love them. 

Humanity was strange. For all of the torture that pain and hunger and sickness that life could create, they were so happy. And their souls were so beautiful. Sometimes she wondered why her Father would have ever wanted to hide her away from this. His creation was more beautiful than she could have ever dreamed of. 

She began to forget what she was. In a world with a father and a brother that lived such a simple, wonderful life, she could not help but get sucked into that world along with them. Winters of cider and warm logs on the fire, springs of new animals and planting crops, summers of laughter and running through the fields as fast as they could, and the fall harvest, they had all worked as the purest form of seduction. And she fell in love. With life, with food, with emotion, with the brother that taught her how to catch frogs in the ditches after a rainfall. There was never a moment she didn’t learn something new. There was never a moment she wasn’t surprised, or excited, or giddy, or upset, or sad, or any other emotion. For emotions were celebrated in humanity. Emotion is what made them human. 

And she was human, wasn’t she? No matter her strange singing voice, or that all her cuts from cooking healed with no scars, or that she could see the colors of life that no one else could. No matter that her eyes shone purple even in the light of the fire. No matter what she was. 

She was human. With her little brother named Billy, and her wrinkled old sun-kissed father, she was human. More human than any human could be. 

And it was a very human emotion that struck her when her father grew ill. 

He told her that he would be alright. He told her not to worry. But she could see the way that he breathed as though every one would be his last. She could see the beads of sweat. She could see how his soul flickered in and out of existence when he slept so tumultuously. She held her Billy’s hand and knew that everything would not be alright. She might not have been able to see the future, but she knew what death approaching looked like. For all things must end one day, and return to her Father. And yet, she couldn’t let that happen. Because her father was more important than Him. Her father had given her love. Her father had given her life. He had given her humanity. Her Father had only caged her.

Everything was crashing down around her, and her beautiful little home was about to crack in two. He was on the edge. She couldn’t let it all fall down. She would do whatever it took to keep them safe. The three of them. 

It had been her little brother’s idea. The city had medicine, didn’t it? He knew how to drive the car, even if he wasn’t old enough. His father had taught him ages ago, just in case. And this was a just in case, wasn’t it?

It was a good idea, wasn’t it?

It was. It was for a good long while. It was when they made it into the city. It was when they got the medicine they needed with the savings their father had hidden away. It was when the lady at the counter complimented the children trying to run errands for their father. It was when they held each other’s hand, finally hopeful for the first time in their lives that if they rushed fast enough, they’d be home in time for dinner. They even smiled at each other. And they were safe, because she knew what a good soul looked like, and she knew who to avoid in such a different and confusing place. Everyone was safe. She kept it so. 

Children are too innocent. They don’t understand what the world is capable of. For as long as humanity is capable of absolute good, so too is it capable of absolute evil. Sometimes evil can happen in an instant. It encroaches like a storm in the distance and you think it won’t ever come, then it hits like lightning. 

They took her Billy first. A group of them, drunk with souls tinged black by evil, they came from behind. She was struck with terror the instant she saw them. Because she knew what darkness in a soul meant. Whatever color it had once been, that was muddled now by greed and maliciousness. She knew she wasn’t human in that moment, because she understood on an intrinsic level that there would never be any reasoning with the likes of them. 

They just wanted their drugs. That’s what they said. But she knew what those grins meant on the inside. And she knew what that knife meant, when it sliced open the neck of her Billy onto the cement. 

She also knew what it meant to hurt inside. She knew what it meant to bleed. And when she was shot enough times, she knew what it was like to die. 

That was the second time.

The howling of a wolf is what saved her. She heard it in the haze between life and death. Her body wanted to try. It wanted to heal. But the person above her wanted her dead more. She could only see a flash of the creature before she was gone. 

And when she returned, she could see the damage that he had caused. Viscera on the ground in splatters of red and pink. Skulls broken open to reveal the ooey gooey insides. Broken fingers ripped asunder and thrown to the side. Just like the neck of that chicken her father had warned her to look away from, right as he pulled back the axe and let it go. And there was her Billy, wreathed by blood and death with a blank look of terror and an arm outstretched toward her. He’d spent his last moments trying to hold her hand. But he’d never made it. That beautiful blue aura that matched his eyes was gone. He’d never grow to be as sun-kissed as their father. She’d never find out if he would get the same wrinkles that always crinkled when their father smiled. 

The wolf approached her thinking her dead. He sniffed her broken body, and he looked for evidence of who she had been. But then she started to sob, and he knew something wasn’t right. He picked her up in his arms, and she saw his face for the first time. Black eyes, a face as pale as the dead, and tears in his eyes. There was a darkness to his soul too. But it was warm. And it was trying. And it was scared. And she was too. 

He held her until she healed. He held her until she could tell him who she was. And he offered to hold her for the rest of her life. But she needed more than that. There was someone who still needed her right now, but she couldn’t bear to show her face. She wasn’t supposed to have survived this. Not when her brother was dead. It wasn’t fair. How could she possibly be able to tell her father? How was she supposed to tell the one she loved that she had let his biological child die? She was the one that was supposed to die. She was supposed to be the protector. She was supposed to be the guardian angel. 

She screamed, when all was said and done. She couldn’t think straight anymore. A child’s mind can only take so much. 

The wolf took care of things. He made sure her father had medicine, and he talked with the man about the truth of the situation. Her brother was dead, and the girl was special. She didn’t die because the world is a lot larger than her father could ever understand. And there is a target placed upon the backs of those that are not of the natural world. The wolf was lucky in his strength, but she is a different kind. She had no defenses, and her mind was paying for it. He told her father that she had suffered just as much as his son, but her body forced her to come back. And she needed time to deal with that. 

Her father didn’t have the energy to cry. 

The wolf had a new place, he said. A better place. A place that would help her deal with the mind that had seen too much. 

The father could only shake his head. 

The girl didn’t know what that meant. She didn’t understand the idea of leaving her beautiful slice of heaven. But she also didn’t understand what it meant to lose her Billy. All that she knew, was that the father was sad. It showed on his soul. Tinged dark and pale, and wavering with the waves that crashed against his heart. 

Everything was ripping in two. That had been the last thing she wanted. It seemed that no matter what she had tried to do, her family was still broken. 

But the girl knew the wolf was good. She could see his soul. So, she held her father’s hand, squeezed it tight, and tried not to scream as she told him that she needed to be somewhere else right now. She couldn’t bear to look at the basset hound’s face. Not while she could still see her brother. And her father didn’t want to admit it, but he felt the same. He needed time. He needed a chance to breathe. They needed a chance to heal.

She couldn’t get the death out of her head, you see. Something like that sticks with a human, even when a human isn’t human. There’s a darkness that starts to encroach around the soul, and something as pure as angel is incredibly susceptible to such a parasite. She was breaking apart.

And the wolf, as dark as he was, was desperately trying to save her. 

Eventually, the father agreed. The girl needed to be with her own. And the father needed time to grieve. They both did. Her father sold his farm and took the memories with him.

The little girl followed the wolf into the woods. 

It was a strange place. Full of mysterious things she didn’t understand. For the first time, she understood that what she saw, was not reality. The real world isn’t summertime and harvests and chatting in front of a fire and laughter and hot chocolate. The real world are the monsters that lurk in the depths. They could be real, or they could be in the cracks of the subconscious. They could be hiding right behind her, or they could be hiding inside her. The faces of things so human and yet so monstrous, reminding her that all they needed were drugs while they sliced open her Billy’s neck and shot her in the back.

But the wolf held her hand tight, and guided her through the dark that she couldn’t understand.

The heart of an angel is a strange thing. It’s pure, and it’s pretty as stained glass, and it’s so easily susceptible to the darkest of advances. That soul should have fallen a long time ago. That creature should have been dark. But with the help of a wolf, and the time that passed, years could go by with the angel never quite succumbing to the terrors of night. For though the forest was a monster, and the subconscious was an evil, there was life out there. There would always be life out there.

Creation is not perfect. Creation will never be perfect. Reality is fear. And reality is love. It’s a duality leaning toward entropy, but along the way we bake and we smile and we wish our loved ones good hunting as they go into the woods to find that coyote. We make out our own slices of heaven, because that is the way that life is supposed to be worth living. And all we can ever do in the end, is dream of a better tomorrow. 

That’s what I want to believe. I can’t delude myself into thinking that the world is evil when I see so much good. But I can’t pretend the world is perfect either. I know it isn’t. I know now it’s never going to be perfect. And that’s okay. 

I guess that’s how I keep living. What a way to do it, huh? 

You’ve caught me at a good time, actually! I was just baking. The poor kitchen is filled to the brim with all sorts of experiments. The manor never ceases to smell like chocolate and strawberry jam. This time, I was trying my luck with choux pastries. There was some whipped cream set aside to fill them, but I wasn’t sure what I should be flavoring it with. Personally, my favorite has always been chocolate. But eventually, you get tired of chocolate, right? Everyone does. Eventually, you have to branch out. Like with hazelnuts, and almonds, and raspberry compote…

I’ve been talking too much! They’re already starting to burn. 

But they’re just salvageable, thank goodness. I patted my hands down on the apron already covered in a light dusting of flour before I grabbed the oven mitts and pulled out the little pastries. 

Maybe some vanilla filling. But that is kind of boring. Banana, perhaps. Banana puffs, now those would be delicious. With a little chopped banana pieces and walnuts and a drizzle of chocolate syrup. 

I bet Rowan would have some good advice on what to do. There are just too many options. I’ll have to ask him. 

I set the pan on the stove top, then paused to warm my hands over the open oven door. It was chilly in here. That was a side effect of dealing with the big bad wolf, but I didn’t really mind. He didn’t know the heating was way too low. And I could keep telling him to raise it every single day, but he’d probably fiddle with it again. Who knew why? He was always like that. 

I transferred the perfect little pastries onto a cooling rack, then tore off the oven mitts. The big gloves were covered in flour. So was the rest of me. I sneezed, and white powder exploded in all directions. In the reflection of the backyard window, I could see it everywhere. My hair was more white than blonde. I had to giggle. I was a little ghost. 

The living room was silent except for the big grandfather clock ticking away by staircase. Silent as always, the only sound was the padding of my striped socks against the wooden floor. That was the way of things, with Rowan. No music, no noise, not even the rumble of a car passing by. Sometimes I missed the rooster calls. But that was okay. As quiet as the manor was, it just gave more opportunities to sing. And a place this big had excellent acoustics.

“Now, where are you?” I muttered. I rubbed my cheeks when I looked in the wall mirror and saw that my face still had splotches of flour. There were pieces of extra dough splattered in between the strands of hair. 

“Rowan?” I called out to the collection of bookshelves and couches, then to the side table with the long forgotten ivory chess set he coveted, and I didn’t have the patience for. I would have thought he would have been in the living room, but he was nowhere to be seen. “Hello?” 

“Yes?” A familiar voice called from the top of the stairs. Running over, I grabbed the bottom railing and leaned back on my heels with a bright grin.

“I got a question!” I yelled up. 

“What kind of question?”

“The kind I need an answer to.”

A mop of black hair appeared at the top of the stairs with a less than impressed expression. I smiled up at him. 

“Is it baking related?”

“How did you guess?” 

“Hazelnut and chocolate.”

“I’m bored with chocolate,” I whined. 

“You can keep saying that all you like, but I know you’re not.” The man rolled his eyes as he began to descend. 

My wolf was taller than any other person I’d ever met. He had to duck his head to avoid doorways. His trench coat was as big as a tent, good for hiding people away from scary things. I didn’t fit anymore, but he still tried sometimes. Some people thought his skin was too pale, or that his eyes were too black, or the way he held himself so tall and stilted was strange. We went out to places and he got wary expressions for looking and acting the way he did. 

I suppose I could understand the fear. He soul was darker than most. But it was beautiful in its own way. Instead of black, it had subtle notes of blue, and it was desperately trying to claw its way back up to something brighter. And I knew him. That was the important part. People who didn’t know him only saw a tall scary man. But that was my wolf. My big brother.

And sometimes I couldn’t help but tease him. 

“I am though,” I leaned back as I held tightly onto the bannister. “What about strawberry?” 

“You’ll complain that it’s not chocolate.” He pocketed the book he’d been reading and headed past me into the living room, ruffling my hair as he went. 

“I’m almost as tall as you now.” I followed him. 

“No, you’re not.” 

“Yes I am.” I jumped onto the couch as he tried to sit down elegantly. The whole couch shook. 

“You’re stuck at your height, and you will forever be seven inches shorter, and that’s the end of it.” He took out his book and began to look for the page that he’d lost.

“What if I drink more milk and sleep more?” I peered over at his book, then froze as the epiphany struck me. “Milk flavored.” 

“Milk flavored?”

“Condensed milk with whipped cream in the choux pastry.” 

He shook his head. “You’re going to hate that it’s not chocolate.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter. I’ll just give them to the dragon in the woods if I don’t like them.”

He sighed. “I told you to stop feeding things in the woods.” 

“He looked hungry.” 

“You’re just advertising that he can continue to get meals here. If you do that, we’re going to end up with dragons and giant ferrets right at our doorstep. You don’t have the meat to feed them. They’ll eat you instead.”

“I’m their friend!” I said, affronted. “I’d give them a steak if they asked nicely.” 

“They’re not friends. They’re animals. And you have to treat them like you would any other wild animal. You can’t understand how they think. They could do anything. And they’ll most likely do whatever it takes to get them a good meal.”

I sank back into the couch and pouted. “I can see their souls.” 

“That’s not the same thing.” He’d given up on trying to find the right page. Instead, he threw the book to the side, let his head fall into my lap, and closed his eyes. He looked tired. But then, he was always tired. I don’t think I’d ever seen him sleep. “You can see what they’re feeling, even a few thoughts on a good day, but even a good creature might be fearful enough to want to harm you. That’s what animals are like. They’re all instinct. So, you need to be careful. And stop encouraging them like the immature forest gremlin you are.” He opened one eye to look up at me. I poked his nose. 

“You’re the forest gremlin,” I sniffed.

“I’m the one trying to keep you safe.”

“I am safe.” 

“Not if you feed monsters.”

“They’re good monsters.” 

“Don’t make me repeat myself.” He patted my chin. “I’m glad you always assume the best of people. But you need to understand that everything will look for the opportunity to get ahead. That is the nature of the world. Creatures are out there to survive. Resources are scarce. And people are the worst, because they have a choice and choose not to. Animals don’t have a choice, so they’re easier to predict, they just want food and to reproduce. But you can’t apply human characteristics to them. They don’t understand that love you give them.” 

His hand was cold. I held it in my hands to warm it up. It was hard to hold it with two hands. They were way too big. “If I think like that, then I can’t be around anyone. I think you’re afraid, Ro.” 

“I’m always afraid for you.”

“You don’t need to be,” I smiled.

“The world is dangerous, Cass.” 

“Not always. You’re not dangerous. So not everyone is bad.”

“I’m dangerous, too.” 

I giggled. “You’re only dangerous when I accidentally throw out my paint water onto your rose bushes.” 

“Those are very carefully maintained rose bushes,” he grumbled. “Alright. Maybe I’m an exception. But I’m not naturally good, and you know that. You know that more than anyone. You can see what I am.” 

“You’re so sad all the time,” I sighed. “I don’t think you’re as dangerous as you want to think. I think you just want to remember the terrible things, because you think you deserve it.” His soul was rippling mournfully. He turned his head away. 

“Sometimes I wish you didn’t see that.”

“Well I’m glad I can.” I squeezed his hand tight. “If I didn’t, you’d be grumbly all the time, and we’d never even talk to each other.” 

“I’m not grumbly.” 

“Not anymore.” I beamed. “You’re not allowed to be tall dark and silent when I’m busy nearly burning the house down.”

“Speaking of which.” He looked to the kitchen apprehensively. 

“No, no, I didn’t. I promise. Everything is fine. I even turned the oven off.” I grinned, then sighed. “I wish you could have some of my creampuffs. I bet that would make you happy.”

“I do, too.” 

“And chocolate. I want you to try chocolate. Maybe I’m sick of it, but I don’t think you’d ever stop eating it if you could.” 

He wriggled his hand. “I’ve always wanted to try chocolate.” 

“Maybe one day.” I shook his hand firmly.

He chuckled. “If an immortal monster has an eternity, there’s bound to be one day that the impossible can occur.” 

“I would like to see your reaction to chocolate, thank you very much. So that means you have to figure it out in the next eighty years, or I’ll be very mad.” 

He snorted. At that moment, the buzzer to the door sounded. He and I shared a look. 

“Can you tell whose aura is outside?” He asked. 

“I can’t see through walls.” 

He sighed, grunted, then got up slowly like the old man he was as he went to get the door. “Stay back,” he muttered. 

“It’s just opening the door.” I hid behind the couch anyways. 

“You forget where we live.”

“Okay, maybe it’s a werewolf. But you’re stronger than a werewolf. I’m fine.” 

“There are a lot of things out there that aren’t werewolves.” The buzzer sounded again. “I’m coming, I’m coming,” he grunted as he opened the door.

I thought I was going to go blind.

Rowan didn’t react to it. He just kind of stood there, staring at the explosion in front of him, blinking and trying to figure out if he’d seen their face before. He didn’t know, of course. To him, it was just a girl, with black and brown hair, brown eyes, and a bright red shirt. Maybe the weirdest thing to him would have been the way she held herself. She was just as tired as he was, even he could see that. 

“Can I help you?” He asked. 

“I’m here to see Cassidy.”

He frowned. “And how do you know that name?”

The cacophony of color sighed. “Long story. Do you have an hour?”

“No. And I don’t know who you are. So, I would prefer if you would leave my property as soon as possible.” He was stiff, and adult. 

“I also take consensual head remodeling.”  
Rowan frowned. “That might be one of the most suspicious things I’ve ever heard.”

She groaned. “Rowan, can you stop for just one second? This is important. I swear, I made you too protective.” 

Oh, Rowan didn’t like that. His soul was rippling. The light at the entrance was starting to flicker on and off in the middle of the summer day. The shadows under their feet were starting to twitch. 

“And how do you know who I am?” 

“See, it’s a bit of a conundrum. In order for you not to be freaked out, I have to explain, but the actual process of explaining is already freaking you out in itself. If you just let me in, and have Cassidy just look at me, that would fix a lot of things. I promise.” 

I could see her right now, and I don’t think that what I was looking at was answering a lot of questions. 

But Rowan wasn’t going to listen, he was only getting angrier. “You can’t come in. And you can’t talk to Cassidy. And if you come back, I will make sure you aren’t able to leave. Do you understand me? I don’t know how you got our information, but I’m not stupid.” 

“Rowan,” I said softly from behind the couch. “Can you let her in please?”

Rowan turned sharply to me in confusion. “What? She shouldn’t know us, Cass. There’s something wrong here.” 

“She’s not going to take no for an answer.”

“That’s not a good reason.” He gritted his teeth. He was being silly. But he didn’t know any better, so I couldn’t blame him. “I can still make sure she leaves.”

“You can’t fight her, Rowan.”

“What? Yes I can.” 

“No, not really.” I looked to her, and squinted. She finally seemed to notice me there from behind the couch. Or maybe she always knew I was there. I hadn’t seen something like her in a very long time. And even then, this was different. I didn’t know that something could be so… Much. I knew it should be terrifying, but I couldn’t even seem to put it altogether in my head. There was too much to process. 

“Well, I’m glad at least one of us understands.” She stepped through the threshold before my wolf could stop her. She was fast. And she was hard to see. There was too much color leaking out and I couldn’t even think straight. 

She plopped herself down on the armchair by the grandfather clock. Rowan ran between us to stand bristling with his teeth barred and a faint growl in his throat. Shadows whipped between his legs and around his arms in the faintest shades. Anyone could miss them if they weren’t already looking for them. 

“You can’t just barge in here,” he hissed.

She held up his long-forgotten book from the couch and leafed through it, then settled on a page and held it out to him. “This one,” she said.

“What?” 

“The page you were looking for. You should get a bookmark.”

“I… What?”

She sighed and let it drop. “I’m sure your angel could tell you what you need to know. I’m trying to be polite here.” 

He turned from me to the explosion with a twisted confusion that only grew with each passing moment. “Cass, what is she?” 

“I’m not sure,” I admitted. I tried to squint harder at her. It wasn’t just an aura. It was colors, of all kinds. And that was the worst. Multiple colors. That shouldn’t happen. People didn’t have souls with more than one color. They had one. One aura. One color that was a reflection of their self. And she had all of them, with not a single color defining her. She was torn and broken into fractals and it all burned like a sun. It struggled to accommodate the sheer amount that made her. Like she wasn’t built for it. “Human,” I decided, examining the darkness of her aura, or whatever this was supposed to be. It was considerably dark. But it was confused. It was so complicated. Torn and tattered and battered and breaking. Pieces lost and pieces gained in a puzzle that wasn’t put together properly. Heavily drizzled with fear, served shivering. “Human, and God,” I realized. That had to be it. Power of this size, multiple colors, multiple auras, multiple souls. It was hard to wrap my head around. 

The unimaginable energy grinned. “You’re good.” 

“God?” Rowan took a step back. His eyes looked at her for the girl that she seemed to be, and tried to find any kind of evidence of what I’d said. He wouldn’t have seen anything, I don’t think. Even a power as strong as that only showed up on an aura. “She’s just a mind reader, or something,” the wolf tried to argue. “She’s built a front. She’s lying. She knew about you and me because I was there. She’s not a God, I mean, look at her.” 

“Her aura is unlike anything I’ve ever seen, Rowan. I can’t look at her.” 

I could see the shiver in his soul. 

“Phyreo?” His voice was little more than a whisper.

“Stronger. I don’t…” I couldn’t think of words, so I shook my head. “I don’t know how to explain what I’m seeing right now.” She wasn’t evil, I knew that much. But she wanted something. And neither of us would be strong enough to stop her unless she got what she wanted. But, she was just talking to us. She could do anything she wanted, and she had showed up to our door knocking and asking to be let in. She was right. This was just politeness. She could do anything right now, and she wasn’t. Was she playing games? Was she nice? What was she?

“I’m frankly surprised you’re able to look at me at all,” she murmured. “But I did just go to the Seventeenth. I guess it’s quieter right now.” 

I tried to look harder. The more I looked the more I wished I didn’t see. There was too much wrong there. She was hiding a lot, and she was good at it. But there was something terrible inside her. I could see faint pieces of history coated in emotion strong enough to show up. Screams, and blood, and betrayal, and a hollow that couldn’t seem to be filled no matter how much energy she exuded. I closed my eyes again, and tried to replicate it in my mind. I couldn’t keep looking, it hurt too much. 

So much of it were things that I had seen before, people often ended up with similar scars on auras that ranged from bright to dark. But she was made of them. There wasn’t any part of that multicolored soul that was right. 

And she was crying. Those colors, they were tears coming from her eyes. 

“You’re sad,” I mumbled. I kept my eyes screwed shut, but even through them I could see the flickers of color. “You’re sad, and made of pain.” 

I could hear Rowan’s growl.

“You’re trying to read me?” She asked.

“I can’t help it. It’s right there. I can’t look away.” I risked opening an eye again, and confirmed that what I was still seeing was impossible.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have come.” She didn’t mean it. She needed something out of me. She came here for a reason. She was desperate. I could see that, at least. It was almost like she was reaching out to grab me and swallow me whole. But I could also see she didn’t like the eyes on her. She wasn’t used to being seen this way. She didn’t like it. Well, I didn’t like it either. 

I shook my head. “Sorry. I know most people don’t like it. I’ve just… I’ve never seen anything like you before. You’re so confusing.” What did she want? What was she? What was I even looking at? I wanted to keep Rowan calm, but even I couldn’t seem to comprehend her. He was getting steadily worse. At this rate, he was going do end up doing something he’d regret.

“I always wondered what I looked like, I suppose,” she sighed. It got a little easier with time, but I still felt like I was burning out my retinas. They were slowly going numb. “To me, I look like nothing. I’ve always kind of looked like nothing. I can see Rowan and you, but never myself.” 

I blinked. “You can see me?”

“Purple.” She smiled. “And he’s dark blue, right?” 

I looked down at myself. She was right, even I could see the faint purple emitting from me like a shadow flitting about. It was soft and gentle, and I always found comfort in it. But Rowan wasn’t amused. And what she was saying intrigued me. I’d never met someone else able to see auras before. But then, she was so much more than me. That was more important right now. 

“Tell us what you are,” he demanded. “Your power - I can’t feel it – but I trust Cassidy. So what are you?”

“I created it.” 

My eyes widened. “Oh.” And suddenly it made sense.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” The wolf snarled. 

Of course she looked like that. Of course I could barely even look at her. There was only one thing in all of creation that could be as nebulous as her. And it was something that made creation itself. Every God. Every evil. Every thing. A shiver went up my spine. “It means she made it, Ro. All of it.” 

“The world?” 

“Everything.” I blinked, then blinked again. “I didn’t know. I didn’t even think – I thought it was my – my Father. He made it all, didn’t he? I never even imagined – how is that possible? How can you be?” I didn’t disbelieve her. She was stronger. She was older, and younger, and everything in between. She just, she just was. 

“I ported over a bunch of stuff from my old world, including old religions. I worked with what little I remembered, and that included you and your pantheon. Sorry for introducing myself like this. I wasn’t sure how else to explain myself.” But she could have, in many other ways. There were limitless things she could have done. She could make and delete the very fabric of space and time. And she was just talking with us. Politeness. She still wanted something. But what could all of creation want with just me?

“No, it’s okay.” I tugged Rowan’s hand before he could lunge for her. He was thinking about it. And I needed someone to hold onto right now. “Ro.”

“Cassidy, you can’t just expect me to stand idly by when this person just waltzes in here with that level of power demanding you.” 

“I know. But it’s okay. You need to calm down. I’m safe.” She must have been able to see what I felt. She knew that I knew, that I had questions, that I wanted to get to the point and stop pretending that she cared. But this was all a charade. For who’s benefit, Rowan’s?

“If you can’t even see her soul right, it’s possible it’s evil. I can’t just sit here if she’s going to do something to you.” 

“What would you do? She’s still stronger than you.” I smiled gently. “You need to stop and think about this for a second, please. I know it’s scary.”

He wavered. “Maybe you’re wrong.”

“I’m not wrong, Ro.” 

My wolf came to sit beside me.

His arms wrapped around my neck like he could block out everything with his body. To be fair, he was pretty big. He probably could, most of the time. This wasn’t most of the time. I patted his hand, but he wasn’t relaxing. And it was for good reason. I couldn’t relax either. There was a universe in front of me, and it could see me. And I looked back into it, and it didn’t like that. 

“So,” I said softly. “Why did you come here to us? Do you need us?” That was a trick question. And maybe she knew that too. But I was giving her a choice. She could decide to do what she wanted with it. I needed to know where she wanted to go with this. There were so many ways this could go wrong. With a snap of her fingers, we could so easily cease to exist. 

But then, that pain was almost as difficult to look at as the strength of her creation. That wasn’t a lie. What made her hurt so much? The power itself had to have an effect on her, she was only human, suffering with something she shouldn’t be able to hold. But it was more than that. Something was like a cleave through her entire self. No matter how much she was pretending, that sadness and pain wasn’t just in the dark circles under her eyes. I’d never seen something so finished. She was a broken toy. 

Despite everything, I wanted to give her a cream puff. 

“I need you, Cassidy.” 

Rowan twitched. “No.” 

“Ro.” I cautioned. He growled, and lowered his head again with his eyes still focused on the explosion in front of us. I turned to her, and forced my eyes wider than slits so I could try to see her better. “I’m not sure I can help.” I looked at the breaks and the darkness. There was just so much. I had such an urge to hold her. She was curling up on that couch like it was going to suck her in. She wanted to pull me in with her, but I still wanted to go.

“The world is going to end,” she said. 

That was the truth. 

“Keep going,” I said. “I’m listening.” 

I watched closely as she spoke. About the Seventeenth. About the world she had made. About her own subconsciousness. Shivers went up my spine as I realized how our existence hinged on such thin threads. Instability made the world go ‘round. Already, this world had ended once. And now it was so close to ending again, as soon as her monster realized his strength. She was the most unstable thing I’d ever seen.

But there was more to this. More to her. She was still human. And those scars were too deep for what she had told me. What was she, really? It was killing me. I wanted to know. I had to do something. I couldn’t keep sitting in front of someone so hurt without at least trying to make it better. That’s not what I did. I needed to help. I had to help. 

It hurt, to see a little girl grieving. 

“But why are you broken?” I finally said when I was done. 

“What?” 

“There’s a crack. Darkness. Everything is twisted, like scars. What did that to you?”

“I don’t know,” she muttered. She was lying. 

Rowan slowly sat up to his full height to try and talk control of the situation. “Alright,” he swallowed. “You’ve said your piece. Now we can say ours. You think Cassidy is the perfect fit because she could control your emotions. But… But that sounds so… ethereal. Unquantifiable. What would even happen when she becomes you?”

“I told you. Nothing. She’d simply hold it inside her.” 

“She doesn’t actually know,” I said. E turned her head to me with a mixture of confusion and anger.

“Yes I do.” 

“No you don’t. You don’t know anything. You don’t know what you’re doing. E, you’re lost, and you’re scared, and you’re hurting. And you’re young. How old are you, really?”

“Old enough.”

“Have ten or twelve years really passed, like you said? Or has it been two months? Or a day? Can you keep track of things anymore?” I stared at her, learning the lies as soon as she thought of them. She didn’t want me to see it. But she didn’t know how to turn it off. All of that power, and no control. That was why she was playing these games. Maybe she was afraid of what she was capable of and only knew how to overextend herself, or maybe even she didn’t realize how much power she had. She didn’t realize how deep it ran, how eldritch it was. She couldn’t even find a way to stop the color without some outside force like the Seventeenth. But why? Why was her subconscious fighting so hard against her? Why did it hate her so much? 

“Don’t play games like that,” she said quickly. “I know that much, at least. I know the time.” 

“Do you, though?” 

She didn’t. She was lying again. And she knew I could see her. She and I locked eyes with each other. She looked into my soul, and I looked further into hers.

I wish I hadn’t. Because I saw the answer, then. And it broke me too. 

Rowan had to hold me. My cheeks grew wet with tears. She could see what I envisioned in her mind and it kept showing up inside her again, right in front, and the feedback loop was only making it worse. It never ended. And that’s how she felt, inside. So far in, that it was only now she was seeing it again, after all these years. 

“Cassidy!” He tried to wipe my eyes, but it wasn’t helping. I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t look away, either. It was mesmerizing and so bitterly sad. A complete duality that even she couldn’t seem to fathom entirely in her consciousness. And because of that, it all resided in a place she would never have to look too hard at. Marinating. Decaying. It desperately wanted her to fail, because it knew something that the rest of her had tried to bury so long ago and pretend never existed. 

All because of Charlie. 

“It was never enough, was it?” I tried to talk through the tears. Vaguely, I could hear Rowan trying to calm me down. “It was never enough to bring her back again. It wasn’t real. She wasn’t real. She was your imagination. What you wanted her to be. And what you wanted your mom to be. You can’t replicate the world you came from. You can will it as hard as you can, but a part you never believed you could do it. So you couldn’t. And she was still dead, somewhere in there.” As soon as I’d said it, I knew it was true. It showed up on her soul. And it hurt. Too much. I’d said too much. 

I had such a running mouth on me. 

She stood. She smiled. She bowed her head. And then she headed for the door. 

I grabbed her arm. I wasn’t even sure how I’d managed to stand on my own two legs blubbering as much as I did. But I did. And I held on tight. And I hugged her.

Her hand was shaking. She didn’t want to leave, she still needed me, and now I knew why. But she was afraid. I had only gouged the wound and dipped it in salt. That was the last thing I wanted, but if she ignored it, it would only fester. 

Though, looking at her now, with that smile, and that desperately sad soul… She didn’t want to solve it, did she? She wanted to hurt. 

But then what was the point of trying to save the world, if all she did was punish herself? 

She sighed. “I only did this because one of the others said it made logical sense. I didn’t want it to go this way. Why couldn’t you have just agreed? Why couldn’t you have just turned the other way, and talked about other things?”

I wiped my eyes. “You made me able to see things like this,” I said softly. “But that doesn’t matter anymore. You’re in pain. That’s what I care about. This is what I do, E. This what you built me to do. And it’s okay to not be a God right now, if you don’t want to. I just… I can’t just sit here and pretend that you’re not grieving.”

“The world is ending, unless I do something about it,” she snapped. “I’m not here to mince words and talk about my feelings. I have things I still need to do. And if you’re not going to agree to this – if you’re as afraid as your aura keeps telling me, then I shouldn’t waste my time. All we’re doing is playing off each other’s insecurities.”

“When’s the last time you’ve talked about your feelings?”

“Psychologists and I don’t do well together. I just…” She sighed. “I’m just trying to keep this world alive, okay? I don’t want this one to go too, because I’m stupid.” 

“You don’t believe that.” I squeezed her hand. “Maybe I am scared of you. Maybe you lie all the time and pretend to be a good person when you’re not, because really, this conflict satisfies one of the many pits inside you. But you’re human. And that is a very human thing.” 

She tensed in my arms. “That’s not what you think it is.”

“You don’t need to pretend to beat yourself up for me,” I said. “I know what you really want to be able to do. And it’s okay.”

She closed her eyes, then tugged away from me. “Stop looking at me. Do you want the job or not?”

“She’s not taking it.” Rowan stood up and strode forward. His eyes were dark, and his soul was darker. He wrapped his hands around my shoulders protectively. “You won’t even tell her the truth. Are you evil?” 

“She’s human, not evil,” I said. 

“Stop it. Do you want the job? Or not?” 

“You said she’s doing this for the love of conflict,” Rowan muttered. “What are her real plans? What does she want to do?”

E glared at Rowan and my stomach flipped. I reached back for the wolf’s hand and gripped it tight. 

“She wants to save the world,” I said truthfully. “She is, Ro.”

“The job,” she growled. 

“I’ll take it. But… I don’t think this is going to solve anything.” I looked at her earnestly. “You and I can both feel it. Your subconscious. It’s never going to let you win. All of this is in vain. Anything you do is going to fight against you, as long as you feel responsible for-” 

“I’ll find a way,” she said adamantly with a snarl in the back of her throat. 

“I want to believe that,” I mumbled, “but, E, well…” I sighed. “We’ll have to wait and see. Whatever happens, I want to help. Whatever it takes to make you feel better. It’s not fair.”

“Nothing in my life has ever been fair. That’s what fate is. And that’s just life.” She patted my shoulder, ignoring the pointed, fearful glare of Rowan. “I’ll be seeing you when I need you. And you.” She turned to the demon, finally, and gave a strained, tired grin up at him. “You can come visit her whenever you want. I promise. I’ll give you whatever it takes. You want to be able to teleport around like a loon? I can do that for you. So stop growling at me.” 

Rowan narrowed his eyes. “I never agreed to any of this. You two are just going off to decide things on your own when she’s still little more than a child. Cassidy is still under my protection.”

“Whatever she decides, this is up to her. Not you.” 

“I’m right here,” I said meekly. “And I’m going, Ro.” I turned and patted his hands that were way too big. “If the world is ending, then I have to go.”

“You don’t have to do anything, Cass. She can find someone else – there has to be someone else, right?”

“Sure,” she lied. 

“No,” I said. “I’m going. And I’m going to be okay. And you can come visit, and meet these new people I’m supposed to be working with, and we’ll have tea parties together and I’ll make lots of pastries for all of them and it will be a fun time. Okay?” 

“Cassidy,” he spoke in a soft whine and clutched my hands in his. “You’re too young for this.”

“Everyone is too young to you, you old geezer.” I smiled. “But I’m old enough to know where I’m needed. And I am needed, now.” I glanced back at E. “Maybe this is all a case of her working as she goes, or maybe I was made to do this. But whatever happens, I have to go. And I promise, I’m not going to get hurt.” 

“You can’t promise that,” he sighed, and dropped his head on mine. “I don’t need to see your aura to know that you’re lying.” 

“I’m not lying,” I lied. “I’ll be okay. I promise.”

My silly wolf. The one weakness he’s always had, believing me. But I could see E’s aura in the corner of my eye. And I knew for a split second what the future would hold. 

I was just glad he didn’t ask why my hands were shaking.


	16. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> MUSE: 
> 
> Halestorm - I Like it Heavy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ugwl46p7vvk  
21 Pilots - Heathens: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkBpwxWmFWA

PYRIM

The first thing I could feel was pain. I’d grown used to that. What was it this time? A broken back, perhaps the neck, too. I was too brittle. Sometimes I felt as though I were still a stuffed animal on the inside. A single shove, a kick, and I was back to boneless. 

But, I should be dead. I could barely recall what had happened, but I knew E was gone. The parasite was on a rampage. There was no one to save me. Everything was a mess of fighting and chess and stupid decisions that girl loved making. And then… And then… 

And then the sounds of shouting, of a roar that rocked the tiny cottage to its core. I struggled to open my eyes, just to see. I couldn’t even make a noise. 

And then a hand touched my head. I flinched away. It carefully pushed my ears back, then rubbed down my neck. And the pain began to go away. Blearily, I looked up to the owner. A pair of worried purple eyes were far too close for comfort, staring down at me with a matching frown. A girl in golden locks.

“It worked,” she said softly, and sighed in relief. “I can’t believe it worked. I’m so glad. Heya, kitty. Are you okay? How are you feeling?” 

“Who are you?” I murmured. My throat was dry, and the words were raspy. Her hand froze in place.

“You talk,” she said in wonder. “I’ve never met a talking cat before.” 

“Forget it, that’s not important right now,” I muttered. Struggling to my feet, I turned my attention to the fight in front of us. That’s where the fire came from. 

The Seventeenth was struggling to keep a gremlin of a girl at bay with the door that had been torn off its hinges. Even the bristling strength of the abomination seemed outmatched by that small girl. I’d never seen anything like it. She laughed at him. Her feet dug into the entranceway and slowly pushed the creature back with straining arms. Faint flames flickered out from her arms and legs. Her eyes were red and orange and trained on the creature with as easy intimidation. 

“That all you got, bub?” She snarled. 

“Stay out!” He howled. He made himself seem larger. But she was already small, and she only cackled louder. Flames erupted as she pushed back. Her arms were thin, but they strained with inhuman strength, keeping the monster in his place in a way I’d never seen before. Her shoes made grooves in the cement steps. She opened her mouth wide and licked the lips of a maw filled with shark teeth.

“Do not set fire to the cottage,” came a monotone voice from the kitchen. I twisted around. A straight, thin brown mop framing a thin face watched me like a hawk. The girls’ mouth was set in a thin line as she poured herself a cup of coffee from the coffee maker that no one had ever bothered to use. She took a sip, made a face, and threw the contents of the mug down the sink.

“Where did you all-“ I gulped as I tried to clear my throat. “What’s going on?” 

“It’s okay, kitty,” the blonde girl crooned. She picked me up into her arms before I could run away. I struggled and squirmed, but the girl was all squish and no range of movement. Not a single part of her could be used as a jumping off point. Forced in, closed up, I could barely breathe. 

“Let go of me!” 

“But if you get in the fight, you’ll get hurt,” she said nervously, and tried to pat my head. I hated it. The touching, the petting, how I couldn’t even move. It made my heart race. I kept expecting a hit, a swat, a punch, a shove, SOMETHING at least to get rid of this anxiety and finally do me in already. None of this petting. I wanted to bite her, kick at her. I wanted to hiss. But something about her kept me from it. Her scent was strange. Sweet, like chocolate. 

“Why don’t you just let me in, huh?” The ragged black-haired girl called out to the monster. She sent him back another couple of inches. The flickers of fire grew stronger. “The others got in, but you won’t let in little ol’ me? Scared of me ripping your dick off? I bet it’s the size of a baby carrot.” 

The parasite dropped his head down to the level of the girl, his words dripping malice. “None of you should be here,” His voice rumbled. His mouth opened wide enough to swallow her head in a single gulp, and mass shifted in darkness. Wickedly sharp claws lengthened, reaching forward for her very small, very humanoid hands. “You most of all. You should be cowering beneath me, you who E hid from me. She said you were just a girl. Just a nothing. I should have known that E was even worse than I imagined. You think you can compete with me. You’re nothing. What have you done to her?” 

“See kid, I gotta say, I don’t have a fucking clue what you’re talking about. I never knew who the hell she was until she came to me. And you know, from where I’m standing, you look like the one that can’t even fight back against a little girl.” She grinned wider with wild eyes. “Nothing? You’re staring into the eyes of a sun, and you’re calling ME nothing? You’re a big load of nothing, dude.” 

The girl with dark brown hair meticulously rooted through the cupboards as she spoke. “I would suggest moving this ridiculous battle. It will accomplish nothing but ruining the structural integrity of this house. We are guests in this house.”

“I dunno, I kind of like this,” The angry girl snarled. “He’s strong. I want to see what happens when I tear out those misty eyes of his.” She smirked at the parasite, gripped the sides of the door tight over his sharp claws, then wrenched it back. It went flying back into the forest, and the Seventeenth stumbled with it. One swift kick to his legs from her and he was sent sprawling into the flower beds.

The embarrassed roar was ear-splitting. 

I bit back a whimper and decided it was better off hiding in the blonde girls’ chest. 

The girl stopped petting my head. Instead, she hid me further in the yards of her purple sweater and against the side of the wall and covered my ears with her hands. “It’s okay,” she mumbled softly. “I’m sorry, but I don’t want you to get any more hurt than you were. It doesn’t feel good to die.” 

“I guess,” I muttered. “I don’t suppose anyone is going to tell me what the hell is going on, are they?” 

“I’m surprised E never informed you,” The girl who hated coffee knelt down beside the one covering my ears. “I am the Advisor.” She looked from me to the other girl. “And you two are?”

“Cassidy,” The blond girl beamed, then peered down at me. I could feel the discomfort growing steadily. 

“Pyrim,” I said. “I’m E’s assistant. A guide, of sorts… I thought. I’m not so sure of anything, anymore.”

“E employed us for the purpose of containing her essence, to stave off the end of the world.” the Advisor’s explanation certainly sounded nice, in theory. But my mind was reeling. Surely E wouldn’t do something so stupid. Would she? How far would she go to avoid taking the right way out? 

Advisor pressed a hand against her chest and stood up. “I hold her mind, apparently, not that I can actually access any of it. It’s hiding somewhere untouched in my own brain. Or essence. It appears to be an undefined area. And you are the angel, Cassidy?” 

“How did you know?” The larger girl hopped to her feet, and I unfortunately went with her. “Can you read minds? I’ve always wanted to meet a mind reader!” 

“No, I’m only human. I told E she should have employed an angel to seal the balance, and I highly doubt that creature outside is angelic.” She stared pointedly behind us.

The forest was on fire. 

Fist was traded for fist, screech for screech, as the parasite was matched by a thing three feet shorter than him. The creature that I thought had been a girl was roaring louder than him, making the glass rattle as she looked for every possible avenue to dig into the beasts’ neck with razor sharp teeth. But the Seventeenth was made of void, only existing when he wanted to exist, and she could only connect with him when he sought to hurt her. It made for a frustrating fight. No matter how much devastating fire poured out from her, it just served to further destroy the poor trees. 

He, on the other hand, had gouged many claw marks deep into her flesh. Bleeding heavily, her wounds all flickered with the same fire that was burning the forest. As soon as he made them, they were melting and healing together, slowly but surely. She didn’t even seem to bat an eye when he caught her and degloved her hand with a painfully sharp pull of his claw. Every hit just made her laugh harder, every drop of blood just added to that wild look, that wild laugh and screech that shook the foundations of the house. 

The two girls ventured to the edge of the window with their faces illuminated by flames. 

“She’s like a sun,” Cassidy murmured. “It hurts to look at her. Do you know who she is?” 

“I was told we would be dealing with a demon from the Christian pantheon,” the Advisor mused. “I, for one, am not looking upon these next few weeks favorably.” 

“I don’t think it’s so bad,” the angel said, carefully rubbing my ears as she did. I flinched, and she dropped her hand. “Some demons aren’t terrible.” 

“Her jaw just unhinged,” the Advisor observed. I stared in sheer horror as the demon’s mouth distended far enough to rival the Seventeenth’s. She managed to get his fist in her mouth and eviscerate it before he could make himself ethereal again. The screams made the whole house rattle.

“Well, he’s very strong,” Cassidy argued. 

“Now she’s trying to kick him in the groin, repeatedly.” 

“She’s looking for a way to get any kind of advantage,” the blonde dismissed. “Isn’t he supposed to be the one that’s going to end the world or something? She’s doing a good thing.” 

“Need I remind you that she sought him out specifically for the purposes of fighting him the instant we arrived?”

“Oh… Well… But her heart’s in the right place. And if she hadn’t, we would have never been able to slip inside. He’s still the bad guy, isn’t he?” 

“I have seen monsters before. She looks like one to me.”

“Monsters can be good people too,” the angel said defiantly. 

“Not in my experience. They are better off hunted and mounted on walls.” 

“Don’t say things like that! They have feelings and souls!” 

I coughed, and the two looked down.

“Could you let me down now?” I whimpered. 

“Oh, right.” Cassidy gently placed me down in front of the window. “Just be careful, okay?”

“A difficult ask in this climate.” With every sink of the monster’s claws into the demon, I backed up a little more. It’s not pleasant to have your organs rearranged by those sharp black shadows. But the demon was unfazed. She laughed, coughed up blood, and laughed some more, even managed to bite into the thing’s neck when he tried to go for her with his own maw. He roared in pain. The house shook harder. I fell against the angel’s pant leg and hid my face in her shin. And then it was over.

“What was that?” Cassidy pushed forward with wide eyes. “He just disappeared.” 

“Either he stopped existing, or he teleported. Based on our own method of transportation to get here, I would say the latter.” The Advisor turned back toward the kitchen. “Hopefully the fires will go out on their own. Would you like a coffee, Cassidy?” 

“Oh, I don’t drink coffee, but I’d love some hot chocolate!” 

“I am not making hot chocolate.” 

The blonde frowned, then crouched down to my level to pet my head again. “Do you like hot chocolate, Remmy?”

“No,” I said numbly, staring at the burning forest and the sudden absence of the most dangerous monster in all of creation. 

I had a sinking feeling I was about to go insane. 

…..

They didn’t look in any way like E. None of them. Based on their statements, and that the world wasn’t broken in any way, there were only two different possibilities. Either they were all telling the truth, or E was somewhere, missing where I wouldn’t be able to find her. With the Seventeenth gone, it was only a matter of time before I learned which one was the case. If there was one person that could hunt her down, it was unfortunately him. But if they were telling the truth, and I was staring at what was left of E, well, then, well. 

E didn’t really think this through. 

Cassidy leaned forward on the couch and smiling at me like she was humoring a child. I kept a wide berth away from those hands that wanted nothing more than to pet me until I was bald. 

The Advisor had her attentions on anywhere but here with a newly made cup of coffee in her hands, still steaming. With her legs crossed and her scarf pulled tight, she couldn’t look any less bored of the situation if she tried. 

But at least those two were still… Manageable. The last one, less so. 

Taking up the rest of the couch with a small but star-fished body, the demon’s own blood was still caked in her hair from the fight. She picked shadow out of pointed teeth with a lazy grin, seeming to be the only comfortable one out of all of us. And for good reason. None of us wanted to acknowledge the fact of… her. I inched a little further away. 

“Thank you for finally quieting down enough to allow me to talk,” I sighed. 

“Not a problem,” the angel chirped. “Go right ahead and say what you want to say.” 

“I would prefer if we got this finished quickly,” the Advisor muttered into her cup of coffee. 

“Got somewhere to be?” Shift called over. Advisor gripped her cup of coffee tighter, and Cassidy smiled at the demon expectantly. Shift rolled her eyes, and sunk further into the furniture. “Hell, it’s not like we’re going anywhere. I just don’t want a stupid talking cat telling me what to do. He’s about as important to me as the furniture. He didn’t hire us. Why don’t we talk about the killer shadow that just left that’s probably terrorizing the city? I could go hunt him down, you know, do my daily good deed for the day.” 

“I am the only one left, since you warded that parasite off and took E’s aspects.” I tried to speak as patiently as I could, even as my claws kneaded nervously into the rug. “If you were all left to your own devices, then there’s no telling what hell would break loose. We can’t have you running off with that level of unchecked power. We can’t have any of you getting killed, either. What was previously just one person we needed to keep safe for our continued existence, is now three. Are you all even aware of the volatile situation we’re in?” 

“Listen, cat,” the demon chuckled in her strange, low voice as she leaned forward in the couch. I backed up even further. “I’m the strongest thing on Earth, so you need to get off your high horse and chill the fuck out. Your master’s creation is safe with me. Plus, I don’t understand what’s the big deal of hunting down the big bad threatening all of existence. Shouldn’t we be getting on that?” 

“I don’t want E to feel sad all the time anymore, and I want to make sure the world stays safe,” Cassidy chirped, her voice obnoxiously sharp. “I was told to keep her emotions safe, so that’s what I’m going to do. I promise I’ll try extra hard to not be underfoot!” 

“We can’t keep the world safe if that guy is still somewhere out there,” Shift interjected. “I should go after him.”

“That parasite can’t be killed,” the Advisor droned on with all the enthusiasm of a robot. “Were you not informed of that when E visited you? You’d be setting yourself up for a stalemate and countless casualties. Find somewhere else to sharpen your claws.” She calmly sipped her cup of coffee.

Shift chuckled. “And I thought you were a robot, but it looks like you’re capable of the tiniest smidgeon of emotion.” 

“I don’t care about any God, but the wellbeing of existence is important to me,” the Advisor continued without so much as a glance in the demon’s direction. “If this means keeping myself alive and aware from the general public, then our priorities are aligned, Pyrim. I have no intention of dying any time soon, and this cottage appears to have all of the amenities I require. I simply ask for peace and quiet.”

“You already checked out the bedrooms?” Shift sat up straight. “What did they look like? I asked for an electric guitar in mine. And an amp. It’s gotta be firetruck red. Is it? Fuck, I hope it is.”

“I don’t need to speak, or be on friendly terms with you to be your co-worker. I would prefer dealing with you as little as possible. Monsters such as yourself are distasteful.” 

The demon laughed. “Oh come on – the Advisor, was it? The fuck kind of name is that? Let’s come up with a better one.”

“Like what?” Cassidy asked curiously. 

Shift rubbed her chin as I steadily lost my patience. “Addi? Ad? Addition? She’s like a human calculator, ain’t she?” 

“I am the Advisor, nothing more, nothing else.” 

“Do you even understand the concept of a joke? Or is it, like, something you read about in a book once?” 

Inside, I was struggling not to scream. “We’re getting off topic. Can we all go back to focusing on how important your continued existence is please? There are ground rules we need to go over, you all need to focus on the reason you’re all here!” 

“I’ll protect them, alright? Fuck, calm down.” The demon sat up on her haunches and looked down at me with slitted eyes. I gulped. My ears flipped back, and my back brushed up against the armchair. “Even the bitchy one. Anyone ever tell you you’re neurotic, cat?” 

“Can we refrain from swearing every three seconds?” The Advisor asked. 

“Why?” Shift snorted. “You’re not my mother. What are you, anyways?”

“I told you, I’m human.” 

“You don’t smell human to me. More like a cocktail. Not half bad. Virgin?” 

The Advisor silently sipped her coffee. 

“I’m an angel,” Cassidy offered. 

“I know, Cass.” Shift patted her shoulder. “That scent is like catnip. No offence to the actual cat.” 

She beamed. “Oh, thank you!” 

“No worries.” The demon inched closer. “Sorry,” she murmured as she looked over the girls’ neck. “I just haven’t eaten in a while. I’ve never had angel, you know? Never even seen an angel, in fact.” She blinked at her. “Now that I look at you, you got purple eyes. Never imagined that.” She tilted up the girls’ chin with a finger. 

“You can have some of my blood, if you want!” The girl held out her wrist.

Shift deflated. “Just like that?” 

“Of course! My guardian does it all the time. Just, be careful. It hurts a little bit when you first bite down. And then you have to take care not to drain me. I don’t like dying.” 

“What?” Shift stared at her. 

“I don’t like dying.” The girl smiled. “Do you?”

“Are angels immortal?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “But I’ve died a couple of times, and that wasn’t very fun, so I would prefer if you didn’t do that. But if you’re ever hungry, all you have to do is ask. I really don’t mind.” 

The Advisor continued drinking her coffee. 

“Both of you,” I said tiredly. “Please.” 

Cassidy snapped her head back with a bright smile. 

“I need to know,” I sighed, “how much damage E has caused with this, and that’s going to take time and your cooperation. In order for me to make sure this all runs smoothly, in order for me to minimize the damages, we need to be completely clear on everything. Editors on a democracy system is a problem waiting to happen. We need to establish boundaries. Like no touching the cat. First rule.” 

“Why can’t we touch the cat?” The angel asked. 

“Because the cat is an intelligent creature with his own agency and personal space, so do not touch the cat.” 

She raised her hand. “What if the cat is being extra cute?” 

“Do not touch the cat!” I hissed. 

“What if the cat is looking especially delicious?” Shift flicked crusted blood out from under her fingernails.

“No.” 

“It stands to reason that we will all keep each other in check as long as we work with the democratic system currently in place.” The Advisor swished her coffee around in her mug. “Cassidy managed to bring you back to life, something I doubt she could accomplish on her own. Most likely because I was thinking of doing the same. Shift, I can’t answer for, but she isn’t necessary.” 

“Oh, that’s true!” Cassidy nodded emphatically. “I couldn’t do that before.” 

“Ha ha yeah fuck you too.” Shift kicked back on the couch. 

“But we can also determine that this system means most things will not work for us if we try to do them alone. For example, I have been willing my coffee to taste satisfactory for the past fifteen minutes and it still continues to be bog water.”

“But it does smell nice,” the angel offered. 

“No, it does not.”

“But it smells like coffee?” 

“To the untrained palette, perhaps.” She sighed, then stood up straight and turned to me. “Forgive me, Pyrim, but I am not here to make friends. Please state what other ground rules you would like to make, so I can be on my way.” 

“Right, yes…” I cleared my throat. The demon groaned. 

“God, you people are so fucking boring. Is this all you do? Sound like a robot and then fuck off to be a shut-in in your room? The liquid energizer bunny over here is more interesting than you and cat dad combined, and her personality is like, an inch deep.”

“Please shut up for the moment,” The Advisor said. 

“Oh, YOU get to swear?” 

“Yes. Now shut up.” 

“No causing problems,” I broke in before they could go off on another tangent. The Advisor stopped. Shift continued making faces in her direction. “No interfering with any of the outside world. No changing the fabric of reality. Just… Don’t do anything. Anything. Nothing that can change anything, not even playing with the flavor of coffee. Not until I’m absolutely certain how to go forward with this. This should never have happened.” I was the only one left. God. I really was, wasn’t I? I was alone. Staring at the three of them, completely dysfunctional editor pieces.

“Should never have happened?” Shift echoed. “Then what the hell else was that chick supposed to do? Let the world end? I don’t know about you, but I kind of like living in a giant human buffet.”

My tail whipped back and forth, but I had to remain civil. Civility was the only way I was going to get through this nightmare. 

“Anything but this,” I said. “This… This isn’t going to answer her problems.” 

“Well, shit, guess she should have kept being abused then.” 

“This is more complicated than you give it credit,” I tried to explain. 

Cassidy raised her hand again. “But it’s not.” 

“And why would you say that?”

“I… Oh…” She slowly deflated. “Nothing. Nevermind.” 

“What do you know?” Shift peered over her with a glint in her eye and the girl backed up to the other side of the couch.

“Nothing!” Cassidy smiled nervously.

“You’re a terrible liar,” the demon purred, following after her. 

“Both of you,” I tried to step forward. “Please stop this foolishness, we should be talking about more important-“

The demon shot me a look, and I backed away again with a whimper while the Advisor just watched. I looked up to her helplessly. 

I couldn’t do this alone. 

She sipped her coffee, turned around, walked down the hall, paused at an open door, then stepped through and slammed it behind her. 

Alright. 

Alone. I could deal with alone. I had been dealing alone for the past years of my life. Cleaning up messes, I suppose I could be good at that. Think positive. I had to think positive. 

I hissed under my breath, then turned to the remaining two still fighting each other on the couch. Cassidy had managed to squirm away and was now hanging over the other side trying to kick the demon away with her foot. Both of them were giggling. 

“You two.”

“Shut up, dad,” the demon retorted.

“This is serious!” I cried.

“I’m listening!” Cassidy tried to call out, only to be tackled by the demon again.

I grit my teeth. “Just stay in this house, don’t cause trouble, and I’ll go scream into the woods. If any of you break anything, don’t hesitate to tell me and make my blood pressure rise even more.”

“Wait!” Cassidy fell off the couch, then pulled herself up in front of me. “What if it’s dangerous out there?”

“I don’t care.” 

“Well, I do.” 

My ear twitched. “… Thank you. But I’ll be fine.”

“If you get eaten, I’m not looking for the steaming pile of shit you become,” the demon called out from the couch. 

“Thanks.” 

“No problem,” she saluted. 

“Ooh, maybe I should make something.” Cassidy stood up and clasped her hands together. “That would really bring a house alive. Do you like cupcakes, Shift?”

“If the cupcakes are made of blood, I’m interested.” 

…..

I stumbled in the woods. The flames were still going. Under my feet, charcoal painted my white paws black. Birds screamed. My ears flickered around my head, listening to the noises of creatures far bigger than myself. There were predators around every corner in this godforsaken place. As small as I was, it was something one grew used to. 

I couldn’t think straight. I needed to run.

And so I did. My fur pelted by smoke and ash, my nose assaulted by brimstone, I ran as fast I could. My throat burned trying to suck in air. Birds and squirrels screamed as their homes were set ablaze. 

My body decided when I was far enough. My shoulders locked, my tail between my legs, hacking up phlegm and nose running, I finally fell to my stomach in the singed leaves. My ears streamed. Rheumy, I looked up at the smoke and fire rising. It was nothing to me, and yet it was everything. 

It wasn’t fair. 

None of this had ever been fair. 

From the beginning, I had tried to be good. A good cat. A good toy. A good guide.

I had tried to do everything right. 

For the two of us. 

I thought I had.

Dahlia and I, that’s what it was supposed to be. Remmy and Dahlia. E and Pyrim. The God and her guide. An assistant to help her along the way. Together, forever. I got to watch her grow up. I got to help her through what I thought would be the toughest parts of her life. I got to watch her learn what it meant to feel. I got to watch her finally do something good and know what it felt like to be happy. I got to watch her create with power so limitless it made me cry. She deserved to have something, for once. And she deserved to be safe. 

Once, she was a sweet little girl. For just a little bit of time, she was so happy. 

And then I got to watch my little girl get eaten by and become a monster. 

And this is where all of this had left us. In a forest, covered in flame, with E in pieces and gone, and a monster set loose upon the world. There was no telling what he might do. And to stop him, instead of one irresponsible god, we had three.

I still couldn’t understand what I did wrong.

I kept limping. The clearing wasn’t far from here. Only a few more miles, and the ground was turning rocky. The ash faded into dust motes and mushroom clouds. Moss soothed the burned pads of my paws. The stones were slick with dew. The sound of a burbling stream broke through the song of robins. And none of it meant anything. 

I couldn’t remember the last time I had felt anything in E’s world. The artificiality of it all shone through. I could see an animal and know that it would always be a little off, a little wrong, simply because a twisted, broken god had been the one to make it. Once upon a time, I had found the foxes with bushy tails cute. Once upon a time, I had though the vibrant greens of the forest and the oversaturated imagined flowers were pretty. I thought the strange sea creatures were creative. I thought the multicolored sand was like a kaleidoscope of color. But now, they were signs of the world we lived in. 

A world that was entropy. 

The clearing was just as I remembered it. A field of grass that reached to my stomach, with a few rocks clumped in circles dotted with symbols that might have meant something once upon a time. And there, in the center of it all, was an impossibly large tree. With her mouth and eyes tightly shut, one could almost pretend it was benign upon first inspection. A very large oak, with limbs spread out all the way to the outer reaches of the clearing. But when one looked up, and saw the eyes flutter or the mouth twitch, that was when you knew you were dealing with something that was older than you could understand. 

To most people, I suppose. To me, she was a little younger than myself. But she was old enough, and calm enough, that if I could just stay here for a little while, if I could just close my eyes, maybe I could pretend things were okay again. 

I lay my head down at one of her bundles of roots and closed my eyes. I was in a cradle of flora. The air smelled like freshly dug earth. 

And yet I still couldn’t get it out of my head. 

So many horrors. I thought we had won, when we’d found a way out of The Company’s clutches. I thought we were safe. I had been so excited for her. There was so much she could have done, so many options she could have become. This creation was once a blank canvas. 

If I had known what this would have become, I probably would have told her to run screaming. 

“I don’t know what to do.” I muttered into the root.

The tree of course, said nothing. Because trees don’t talk. 

“I know I didn’t have much of a job before. I know she didn’t care about me. But still… I never thought… She’d just abandon me.”

The silence spoke volumes. 

“If I had been strong, then maybe I could have done something. If there was anything else I could have done, I want to know.” I barred my teeth and closed my eyes tight. 

“I’ve always been a children’s toy.” 

As soon as I said it, the thoughts were real. They were the only things that seemed to be real. They were poised in the air, like crystals that dug into my flesh. Because I hated that it was true. I didn’t want it to be real. 

I didn’t want to be real. 

We could have been happy, couldn’t we? There could have been happiness. She could have built sandcastles and islands and ponies and trees, and we could have been happy. I could have just been there for her, a stuffed toy, smiling at everything she did and silently nodding me head along to her antics. 

I had been so excited to be real. I had been so happy. 

Why did she have to grow up?

“You grieve for someone that isn’t dead.” 

My fur stood on end. I blearily hissed at the owl that towered over me as a giant. His feathers stood up on his neck, and his head turned in my direction. I didn’t have enough energy to run. I relaxed my shoulders and fell back. I guess now was as good a time as any. It’s not like I could fight back. It’s not like I’ve ever been able to fight back. 

“What do you want,” I muttered. 

“You are afraid of the future and clamber for the past.”

“I’m looking at it through rose-colored glasses,” I laughed harshly as I struggled slowly to my feet. My ears back, I could already see the stupid answer in my head. “We never had it good.” I looked in the distance to see the trailing smoke. “I’m not sure if Dahlia was ever really happy.” I was pitiful. I’ve always been pitiful. I was clinging to things that didn’t exist. There was nothing I could control. No point, really, to me. “Are you going to eat me? I think I’m alright with that now. If you make it quick.” 

“You grieve and yet she is not dead.”

“She might as well be. There’s no way something like this can be fixed. She could break herself apart, but that power to do that is gone now. There’s no way she can put herself back together, unless those three idiots find some reason to listen to me. But then, it’s not like E would even want to be put back together. She did this run. That’s all she ever does, is run. She can’t ever solve things head on. She hates herself too much.” I sighed. I was so tired. “How many years has it been?” I asked the owl.

“Time is irrelevant.”

“Sometimes it feels like a century. Other times it feels like days.” I stumbled a few inches forward, then tripped over a root and went sprawling into a rock. Here was as good a spot as any to stop, I suppose. I closed my eyes, and curled up in a ball. My body ached. “Are you going to eat me or not?”

“You are too important to eat.”

I laughed. I laughed so hard, the owl’s feathered ruffled. I laughed so hard my poor hoarse throat ripped and I coughed up blood. 

“You’re a funny bird,” I choked. “What have I ever done to be important? Every step of the way, it seems I’ve only existed to be told to shut up. I’m not of any use, I’m a children’s toy given sapience. That’s all. I’m meaningless.”

“Your importance shows through clear and simple if you open up your eyes wide enough to see the future.” 

“I can’t believe E ever kept you around. You survived the end of the world, and you’re still here spouting nonsense instead of doing anything with your life.” I curled up tighter. “Tell me, owl. What do I do to fix this? How is any of this salvageable? E might not be dead, but she is gone. The Seventeenth is off creating havoc, I’m sure. And I’m stuck here with the fractured world we have left. If I’m so important, then why am I just a stupid talking cat?”

“The world is ending.”

“Of course. Thank you. That’s exactly what I needed to hear.” I folded my ears against my head. “Can you let me die in peace now?”

“The world is ending. You will help it end.”

“Go away,” I muttered. “Stop hooting at me.” 

“You are the key.”

“I am a talking cat. I can hiss at you, if you want.” 

“You are the key to the saving of all of creation.”

“HOW?” I snarled as I snapped my eyes open. “Tell me. Tell me how to fix the world. Tell me what to do. Tell me how to do something. Anything. Please. I want to, I really do. I want to make the world good. I want to be happy again.” 

My body shook, my voice broke. I begged. “Please. Just tell me. Say something smart. Say something that shows me how to bring Dahlia back to me. That’s what you’re supposed to be, right?” I looked up to him in bleary hope.

“The world is ending.” 

I heaved. 

“I can’t do this anymore.”

The owl picked at the phlegm like a fucking pigeon. 

“You’re disgusting.” I heaved again. 

“The world is ending. But it has not ended. Look to the three.”

“I’m not going back there.”

“They are competent.”

“They’re idiots, and dangerous.”

“Yes. But they are competent.” 

“I hate you.” 

He rose up to his full height and cocked his head to the side. “What do you want, Pyrim?”

“Peace.” 

“Humanity,” he corrected.

I coughed out a horrid chuckle. “I’d take peace over that any day.”

“Peace is impossible.”

“That doesn’t mean we can’t keep trying.”

“Peace is antiquated.”

“Traditional isn’t always bad.” Blood dripped from my maw. I looked to the edge of the clearing back toward the house. The fire was starting to fade. Everything really was green enough to keep it from spreading. 

“Peace is eternal night.”

“You sound like that stupid parasite.”

“Are you and him so different?”

“Infinitely.” I started to try moving. One paw in front of the other. I’d inhaled too much smoke. Or maybe I hadn’t healed all the way. But I needed to get back to Cassidy.

I could still feel her hands on the back of my neck. I shivered. 

“You’re a guide. A friend. And so was he.”

“Was.”

“What have you become?” 

“I’m just a fucking cat. Leave me alone.” 

He hopped along beside me as I limped to the woods. “Just a cat. Perhaps.” 

I sighed as my legs gave out, and turned to the owl. “Hey.”  
He tilted his head to the other side. 

“Could you pick me up and bring me home? I decided I don’t want to die. I don’t like dying very much.” 

He gingerly picked me up in one of his claws. I could still feel the sharpness digging into my stomach. I gasped. 

“Pyrim,” the owl said as he unfolded his massive wings and prepared for takeoff. 

“Take care of her.” 

I closed my eyes. The wind rustled in my fur. My stomach lurched as the ground left my paws. “She’s already gone.” 

“You will need to be strong.”

“I am weak. Are you even listening to me? I might be the weakest thing that E’s ever made. I can’t do anything.” I felt like my voice was disappearing into the air. I risked opening an eye, then quickly closed it. Hundreds of feet above the ground was not a look I wanted to keep. 

“You are a guide.”

“Has anyone ever told you you’re terrible for conversation?” I peered up at the mess of feathers. He was staring ahead at the sun. He looked down with his cocked head, those massive eyes seeming to peer into my soul. 

“Take care.”

I sighed. “I will. I’ll try, I suppose.” I stretched in his grasp. “Someone has to, right?” 

“Did you know the world is ending?”

“Why are you hooting at me?” 

“Did you know the world is ending?”

“What do you want?” 

“The world is ending.” 

I rolled my eyes, and settled down into his claws. “Tell me when you want to start talking to me again. All I can hear is hooting.”


	17. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Muse: 
> 
> Just the entirety of this playlist to be honest: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSAZSL68HBA&list=PLNAltzfKqZLh29-rRWA2-3QYCNeH3mpLT&index=2&t=0s

SHIFT

My room totally had an electric guitar. No, wasn’t red, but I could deal with that. It was still loud as all hell. The room might have been soundproofed, but come on. Shit like that is meant to be tested. And I tested it real good.

Now, that isn’t to say I’m any good at it. I just like the noise. It’s always been noise. Stay around as long as me, and you’re just kind of dealing with the same shit of humanity repeating itself over and over again. Days and years get repetitive when you’re stuck in eternal damnation. Events blur together. With no end, you find that time drags on, yet flashes before your eyes like oil in a pan. 

But rock was that new and innovative drug that made me alive in the fifties, and over time the louder, the brasher, the angrier, the more succulent and entrancing it got. Metal, grunge, punk, its more than a sound. It’s a movement humans shroud themselves in. They hide behind death and anger and violence to avoid the other death and anger and violence. Ironic how something crafted to be so shrieking with rage is desperately trying to hide from the real evils of the world. I can respect that. Especially when they make things with the sole purpose to be as loud as physically possible. That’s something we can enjoy together. 

And I was enjoying it, I really was. This place is silent as the grave when I’m not playing something. Either we’ve got the angel humming to herself in the kitchen she’s claimed as her own, or it’s just the fucking birds outside. Maddening. 

So, yeah, I was strumming a few chords that sounded alright to my ears at the very moment the door burst open. And there was that cold fucking bitch again. I’m sure she was saying something incredibly important that was totally crucial for me to hear, but I was a little too busy enjoying myself. I watched her from the armchair I’d made into a nest with my hands around the instrument, strumming away the same sound over and over again as the amp reverbed to hell and back. It just got louder, and she got more desperate, and I smiled wider. Pretty adamant, I’d say. Well, adamant for Addition over here. That meant a few hairs out of place, a scarf wasn’t perfectly positioned, and her eyes were ever so slightly larger than the drugged out slits they usually were. I groaned internally. How many days had it been? And I already knew everything about her. It was like she ran on clockwork. Way too much fucking coffee. 

“I’m sorry?” I called out over the banging out of the guitar. “What was that? I – I can’t hear anything. The music is too loud, you see.” She stopped talking to glare at me. I smiled as I strummed louder. 

Then she tried walking over to the amp and that was not going to fucking fly. I kicked out my leg to stop her. She didn’t even do anything about it. Just stopped, turned to stare at me with an evil silver glare – were her eyes always silver? – and waited. 

“No. Bad robot.” I mimed a spritz bottle at her. “Go away.” 

“Are you willing to act like a mature adult yet?” She asked. She couldn’t say any more because I was making the reverb go nuts again. Her mouth shut back up in a thin line, and I grinned with pointed teeth. Thing I hated most about this girl, you couldn’t faze her. It was infuriating. 

“No one else cares, you know. Just you. Why don’t you get some fucking earplugs or something?” 

“This is a shared space-“ She shut up when I hovered my fingers over the strings. 

I wondered what she’d taste like. Fear would probably add to the flavor on her, I bet. I just needed to find what made her tick. Everyone has something that scared them. Fear is inherent to humanity. They all had the same primal urge to run away from the dark and the unknown. The uncanny leaves every woman, man and child shivering in their skin as they look for familiarity in something that’s not quite familiar. I just needed to get through to her. God, I needed to get through to someone. I hadn’t had a proper meal in ages. “This is a shared space, and you need to act accordingly. I don’t like this arrangement any more than you do. But you are a demon. You must be at least a few hundred years old. You are not a child.” 

I threw the guitar to the side and stood up. She flinched. Good. “Try several thousand. What are you trying to be? Still a teenager, trying to act like a strict mommy?” Stepping forward, I loved the way she backed up in time with me. Wasn’t hard for me to pin her up against the wall. And still, she just glared at me. She smelled good. Definitely a virgin. Not entirely human, but close. There was no way she was, not with those changing eye colors like that. But what was she then? How would that affect the taste? And did I really give a shit? No, not really. My mouth was watering. I needed to eat. Angel blood was sugar and I wanted a full ass meal. Blood, gore, organs and viscera disappearing down my gullet. She was just a stick. But she could still offer something. 

“I am trying to work with what we have been given. You seem intent on trying to stretch the soundproofed rooms to their absolute limits.” She looked down at me with a glare. People looking down just made it easier to kick them in the crotch. 

“Who are you trying to preform for?” I snarled. “There’s no one here but that ditz of an angel and the talking cat. There’s no daddy around to slobber over, okay? Just take a load off.” 

“I’m not trying to preform. I am trying to keep things civil. You should at least endeavor to do the same. And get off of me.” Her eyes narrowed on my arms holding her down. “You smell like blood.” 

“Fuck you.” I leaned in closer, showing my teeth. I was drooling. The walls were too small. I could feel the familiar pangs. After gorging myself for so long, this was torture. “You call for civility and act like I’m lesser than you. You know what happened to the last person that insulted me? They got their intestines torn back out of their asshole and used as a garland around their neck. They were still alive for an hour after. Long enough for me to strip their arms and legs of all the delicious virgin flesh they had ripe for the picking. You’re a virgin, aren’t you Addi?” 

“Don’t threaten me.” 

“I’ll do whatever the fuck I want.” Her eyes went silver any time she was faced with challenge, that much was obvious. But it looks like I was testing her. Too much, and she couldn’t even keep it up. She was struggling not to bristle. They flickered back to black, just a little tinge. She was fallible. “What can you even do about it, huh?” I sneered. “You think I’m vermin, right? Just another monster? I’m not the thing under your bed.”

“I have killed things worse than you. I have dealt with Gods. There are things older than you, stronger than you, worlds away from here. Do not pretend to be the top of the food chain when you and I both have dealt with a god that has proved all that we have ever known about chronology is a lie.” 

I laughed. Because, man, that was a good joke. But when I was done, I pounced on her with slitted eyes. “There’s nothing worse than me, not in any world. Gods, sure, you can use them as a crutch. But what stalks the night? What lives among the people? What has an effect on people’s lives? Not the god that hides away and watches. It’s their soldiers. The monsters. And I’m far stronger than any monster you’ve ever faced.”

“Perhaps in this world. Forgive me for not being afraid of you. You see, you only have one head. A hydra has a few more than that. And a larger body.” 

I snorted. “What does more body parts even do? You can make something look stupid, it isn’t going to make it any more difficult to kill.”

“Perhaps you are unaware of the hydra’s abilities.”

“Shut up. Don’t pretend you’re a warrior. Look at you. You aren’t even trying to fight me off. What do you have, shiny eyes that make you think easier? Wow, I’m so fucking scared.” The rage was building. The power. Was this what the Editor had done to me? My heart was pounding. I wanted to burn this place down to the ground. I wanted to see if her neck was as pale inside as it was outside. 

“I’m a pacifist. I won’t fight you.” 

“You’re the most monotone person I’ve ever met, and yet you’re full of fucking jokes.” We were inches apart. I could smell her. My nails dug into the wall. “A pacifist? Seriously? You can’t say you hunt monsters and then turn around and say you’re not going to fight me. Now I have to know.”

“Stop causing conflict. I came here to end the noise. I am going back my room. I am not sparring with you.” 

“Who said anything about sparring?” My eyes gleamed. “I wanna see how long you can last.” 

“We are not supposed to kill each other. Stop being childish, and leave me alone.”

I grit my teeth. “Haven’t you ever seen a demon?” I raised a hand to her cheek and let the fire slip out, just a bit. It was a dangerous, slippery slope. I wanted more. I wanted to feel more, to revel in it. I could feel it just beneath the skin. She watched it carefully. If only she knew what I was holding back. “Don’t you know what I’m capable of?”

“I’ve seen it.”

“That was nothing.”

“No, I have never dealt with demons before. None like you, anyways.” She raised a hand, and without batting an eye, placed it over the fire. She made the flickering flame go out like a candle. I stared at it, then at her, and had to grin. 

She was kind of hot. 

“I’ve never dealt with the Christian pantheon before. And I have to say, based on what I have dealt with thus far, I do not have high hopes. All I seem to see is arrogance, and naivety. It’s a mess of a myth.”

“Fight me.” I tore my hand away from her and put my hand to her fucking throat. No damned fucking reaction. Nothing. Ugh. 

“No.”

“Fight me!” I snarled. “Stop fucking insulting me, and just fight me!” 

In a split second, she was out of my grip. Another, and she’d spring-boarded off my shoulders and landed behind me on her own two legs. She turned around, rubbed her hands of the scalding from my shoulders, and looked down at me one last time with all the disappointed disdain of an alcoholic mother mirroring her own failures on her child. 

“Just turn down the music.” She closed the door behind her.

I didn’t follow her. 

“Fuck.” 

Things didn’t get much better after that. The house was still closing in on me. The power was still growing. 

Ad was the child, playing the part of the adult. She was the one playing the game that the stupid cat had set forth, staying home, keeping her nose down, never questioning, never fighting. She was the one that hid away and pretended that the rest of us didn’t exist. 

In between pacing my room and scratching up the walls, I kept thinking about how much she seemed to think that I wasn’t worth her time. A pacifist. What a joke. I knew eyes like hers. She’d seen death before. I wasn’t about to be denied just because she dismissed me as worthless. She was the worthless one. She was human, the thing that I fed on and tore to shreds on days I was bored. 

I hadn’t sunk my teeth into flesh in weeks. I ached. 

“Fight me!” I once snarled at her from the kitchen table as she grabbed her third cup of coffee. 

“Your very presence stinks up this room,” she droned, and passed by without so much as a blink in my direction. My claws dug into the couch cushions. I watched her leave with the urge only growing. 

Later on, I noticed the angel had sewn them shut without complaint. 

“Why don’t we see what happens when I tear out those pretty eyes of yours?” I said offhandedly another time, leaning against the counter while the robot grabbed a dish from the fridge. She closed it with her hip, then resumed the trek back to her room with me following behind. She slammed the door shut with speed I wasn’t used to humans possessing. Fury burned inside. My hand hovered over the doorknob. At the last moment, I snarled and turned back to my room. 

I played the guitar particularly loud that day. 

“Frustrated?” The angel asked from the kitchen as I paced the living room. The scent of meat cooking filled my nostrils and just made it worse. I knew that blood dripping in the pain was useless. I knew that steak would taste like sand. She wasn’t making this any easier. 

“You wouldn’t get it,” I snarled under my breath. I kept flicking my eyes back to that bitches’ room. The blonde leaned against the counter with the spatula in her hands and watched me with wide, illuminating eyes. 

“You’re on fire.”

“Thanks for the observation, dumbass.” 

She gasped. There were no tears in her eyes, but I could tell she was holding back.

With a growl, I muttered under my breath. “Sorry. Can’t think.”

She tried to smile. “Do you want some of my blood?”

“No. I want to rip that girl limb from limb.” 

She pursed her lips. “I don’t think we’re allowed to do that. Do you want her blood that bad?”’

“No.”

“If you wanted human blood, I’m sure she would listen if you asked nicely. She isn’t that bad, you know. I think she just likes to stay in her room because it’s quieter there.”

“It’s not about that.”

“Because you know, you play that guitar really, really loudly. And it’s nice, I love music, but maybe she doesn’t like it so much.”

“It’s not that.”

“But then it’s the blood, isn’t it?” She tilted her head to the side. “I don’t know how to read you, I’m sorry-” 

“It’s not about blood!” I hadn’t realized how close I’d become. But I was already on her. She leaned back. The fire singed her hands. I had her pinned against the stovetop, her hands close enough to the element that one wrong move, and I could knock her into it. In that split second of rage, an odd thought struck me. She was almost a full head taller than me. I was a little jealous.

Slowly, I pulled away, and tried to catch my breath. “I can’t take this. I can’t be stuck in here. I need to sharpen my claws. I need to kill. I need to do something.”

“Have you ever been in a house for more than a week before?” She asked. 

I hissed. “You don’t get it. It’s that stupid robot. The way she treats me. That’s it. That has to be it.”

“I’m not sure that’s all it is.”

“Of course you don’t get it. You’re a fucking dunce. Fuck this.” 

“Shift, wait, I’m trying to see!”

She watched me leave with my tail between my legs, slamming the door behind me. I couldn’t even look her in the face. I felt like I’d lost a war. It was just the angel, right? She was such a nothing burger, running on kittens and sequins. And I couldn’t even talk to her. I couldn’t even get the words in right. Nothing sounded right. Nothing felt right. I was dying here. 

I stayed in my room and ripped at the walls with music. 

I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I could taste my own blood in my mouth from biting down too hard on my lip. 

The room I left the next day was more claw marks than wallpaper.

I stood at the front door fumbling with the jacket. Even the leather felt confining. I was considering just burning it. Fuck it, it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered, all I needed to do was just leave. Leave, create a massacre, and come back in time for the blonde bimbo’s tea. I grabbed the door and struggled not to rip it off the damned hinges. So much for that attempt at repair. Hah, it was probably better off on the floor anyways.

“What do you think you’re doing?” 

I slowly turned my head. 

The cat was just sitting there at the edge of the kitchen, tail flicking from side to side, his ears flicked back. His paws were placed one over the other, and his mouth was set in a firm line. 

The doorknob melted in my hands. 

“Leaving.” 

“Where would that be?”

I grinned. “Excuse the fuck you?” 

“I thought we agreed that we wouldn’t be leaving the house while I figured out this situation. As it currently stands, I need to keep searching for the Seventeenth and keeping this delicate balance of the world safe. I can’t have any of you leaving and endangering everything. If E has placed the powers of creation within you, we can’t have you running wild on top of your distasteful demonic strength.” 

I doubted he knew that I knew about the cat mannerisms he gave off. But I could read the smugness in his actions. The way his ears twitched back. His eyes slowly moving into slits that stared at me, not once looking away as one would with a superior. The fur raised just enough on the edge of his back to make him seem larger. His scent was cocky. He didn’t even realize, did he? The whole exterior reeked of arrogance. I wanted to rip his teeth out. 

I growled. “I don’t give a shit about your rules. I entertained them so you would shut the fuck up and not talk to me. Now I’m hungry. If I don’t sink my teeth into a hunk of human flesh in the next five minutes, I will burn this cottage to the ground.”

“Hasn’t the angel been feeding you?” Alarmed now. Ears raised, breath quickening. That was better. I shook off the molten metal from my hand and lowered my head with my teeth just barred enough. They were infinitely sharper and larger than his.

“You don’t know the first thing about demons, do you?”

The tip of his tail twitched. “I know that a cup of blood a day should be more than enough to sate you.”

My mouth twitched into a disbelieving smile. “I’m leaving.” 

“You can’t. All of you need to stay here, in this house, while I go out and work to fix this mess. If you don’t, I’ll be forced to-“

“What.” 

“I’ll… I’ll keep you from leaving?”

“With what powers?”

He blinked. The fur on the back of his neck stood up. “What?” 

One leap had me off the ground and halfway through the room. The second had the fully fledged animal staring down the little black cat, the large nose inches away from his. I breathed out slowly, my own tail twitching, and set my eyes on his. I didn’t look away. Not once.

The kitten’s ears went back as his eyes bulged in fear. Anyone would be afraid, I supposed. Whether it was a human, or a little treat like this black and white snack over here. Being faced with a tiger this close, its nose brushing their shoulder, their fangs glistening just under the black lining of the muzzle, that would enough to make anyone piss themselves in fear. And he did, piss himself that is. I could smell it mingling with the fear scent. It was bright and inviting after the taint of his smug attempt at dominance. Almost too easy. 

“With what powers?” I asked again, in a deep, low growl. 

“What… What did you do?” He whimpered. I was surprised he could talk. His whole body was wracked with shivers. Sitting in his own pool of piss, fur standing up to make him look like a puff ball with an extra long tail, he was pitiful. And yet he could still string words together. Maybe he wasn’t entirely useless if he could still manage that. 

I chuffed. “You’re not the biggest cat here. You stay here kitty, I go sharpen my claws on the bones of a few sorry losers, and then I come here covered in blood and you turn a blind eye. Either that, or I eat you right here and now, and then go out anyways.” I looked down my muzzle at him. He was little more than a snack. Not nearly enough meat, too many bones. Animal had a little tang, but there was still that annoying taste of gritty dust that infected my tongue and wouldn’t leave for days afterward. 

“If you do that, then… Then Cassidy would notice,” he whimpered. “She would be upset.” 

“Would she? Or would she not give a fuck? She only seems to care as long as you’re in front of her. The minute you’re gone, so is her attention span. Cassidy doesn’t care about anything.”

“Yes she does.”

“Not about you. How long have you been here, and been a stranger to us? Have you ever even tried to talk with us?” I glared him down. “Understand us?” 

“I could scream.”

“I’m faster.” 

“Don’t you care, even the slightest little bit, for the sake of the world?” He peered up at me with his ears tilting back. Even butted his head just the tiniest bit against my throat. So submissive. I could tear out his trachea right there and then if I wanted to. But it was kind of cute, in a nauseating way. Like an actual kitten. 

“Of course I care about the world. I’m here in the first place, ain’t I?” His ears went flat against his skull. “I care about the world enough that I can’t be away from it. I need to move.” What I needed was to fight. 

“What the hell is going on here?” 

And there she was. 

I snapped my head to the Advisor and her empty cup of coffee. Barring my teeth with my tail flicking, I snarled. “Give her a fucking bell, I swear.”

“Shift decided to show her other form off,” Pyrim nervously said. I could see him in the corner of my eye starting to back away. “She and I were… Talking.” 

He covered for me. Little rascal. 

“All I could hear was you speaking to her, and growling in return. She doesn’t seem to be one for conversation in that form. Well, she doesn’t seem to be one for conversation in any form.”

“Yeah fuck you too,” I snarled at her. She walked past me without a care in the world, and I saw red. 

I swiped at her leg and caught her by surprise. She went falling, the ceramic mug smashed against the wood floor, and the scent of blood filled the room. 

My mouth watered. 

She made a move to pick herself up, but stopped with a wince. I’d got her good. The hooked grooves of my claws were deep and starting to ooze. A few chunks of flesh had been ripped with it. I tasted them on a paw slicked with viscera. I could have her lungs decorating the room. 

She turned on me, and just for that split second there was fire in her eyes and my heart race. But then they were silver, and she was grabbing the remnants of the mug and struggling to stand. 

Oh no. She wasn’t getting away from me. I circled her. 

“I am not going to fight you,” she said as she hobbled up to her feet holding the broken remains of the cup. “Let me go.” 

“Tell her I’m going to rip out her throat,” I snarled to the cat. 

“You’ll do no such thing!” He hissed back. “You all need to get along if we’re going to keep this world alive. You care about the world, don’t you? Use that logic to stop this ridiculousness!” 

“I don’t hear any logic. Just nattering. You natter a lot, don’t you, kitten?” My eyes didn’t leave the girl. She was hobbling to the kitchen for some presumed first aid. I couldn’t let her. There’d be no acrobatics on a fucked up leg, would there, Ad?

She rushed forward and I launched myself on her back. 

My claws clasped around her and drove her down hard into the floor. Blood flew from my paws seething into fabric and flesh. She kicked out, got my abdomen, and must have ruptured something. I didn’t care. The pain just made me angrier.

I went for her neck and got a whole face full of ceramic.

The tearing of my eyes was enough to let me go, yowling and caterwauling as I tore the tiny pieces out from my eyes. Hands were easier to deal with than claws. The fur melted away and I pulled myself to my feet only able to see shadows and red. But I could smell her. The blood, dripping all over the rug and struggling for the fridge. She didn’t even have the gall to finish me off. 

Catching a blob proved difficult, but there was blood in the water. I could smell her. I could move my legs, follow her, and grab her by the arms, earning another punch my chest. A good one. Pacifist my ass. 

“Give it up,” I hissed to the shadowy blob, breaking her down against the wall until she was a struggling spectre unable to move. “Just stop trying!”

“What do you want from me?” She asked. I broke her wrist in rage. It was like I’d done nothing. No response. No change in emotional candor. As if she was asking what we were having for a weeknight dinner. She was utterly monotone.

She didn’t even scream as the bones crunched beneath my fingers.

And the worst part was I didn’t know. What I wanted, that is. What the hell was I even doing? I could be eating that angel right now. But I wanted her. I wanted her dead. No, I wanted her fighting. I wanted to show her. I wanted to see her with all of the rage and hatred I knew what lying just beneath her. I wanted her to feel what I felt. This energy that couldn’t let me sit here and take the silence. 

I wanted out of this damned hell hole. 

“Do you want to kill me and end the world?” She asked. I gripped tighter. Blood gushed from her wounds. My stomach rumbled. She was just flesh. Only flesh. And I was starving. 

“I want to fight,” I snarled. 

“I won’t fight you.”

“I want to go outside.” 

“We can’t.”

“I want do something!” 

“It’s called cabin fever. You’re unable to exercise the sheer amount of energy you seem to have. After spending so much time giving into impulses and instincts, it’s only natural that going against them is destroying you. You are little more than an animal, and it’s only going to get worse.” She sighed. “You’re obviously not equipped to deal with this yourself. If you want to do something, you can start with letting go of me.” 

I grit my teeth. The muscles in my arms twitched. “If I let go, I lose.”

“Lose what?”

“You’re a pompous asshole full of shit with your nose so far up your own ass that the minute I give you an inch, you’ll see it as win and opportunity to rub it in my face.”

“If I promise you I won’t do that, will you let me go?” 

“No. I don’t believe you.”

“I make it a rule not to lie.”

“Just like you make it a rule to be a pacifist?” 

“That stopped being the case when I began fearing for my life. I was unaware just how much of an animal you were.” 

I growled. 

She went quiet. 

“It’s possible,” she muttered eventually, “that you feel threatened by me.”

I laughed. “You. A human. An insignificant little bag of flesh. Fuck you.” 

“I am trying to help you here. Diagnosing the problem is the first step.” She struggled a little and tightened my grip. “I have not been the most pleasing of coworkers. I fanned the flames by ignoring a ticking time bomb.”

“And you’ve been an asshole about it too.”

“You need to develop a thicker skin. You can’t just kill everything that annoys you.”

“Try me.” 

“And end the universe? I would rather not. Don’t you care about the world? You seem to want it to stay stable even more than I do. I’m only doing this for the purposes of security. If I didn’t join the Editor, the world would have most likely ended by now.” 

“She’s not wrong,” came the small, terrified voice of the kitten from what I had to guess was behind the couch. “As much as I … you know, hate to admit it.” 

I narrowed my eyes. Still couldn’t see her. But that meant I could see her punchable expression. It made her almost bearable. 

“E got me too. This is the only non-shit life she said I had in the cards.”

“And here I was thinking your cause was noble.”

“Can you stop being a fucking bitch for like, one second?” 

“I am just saying exactly what I think about the situation.” She paused. “But I apologize. I do tend to… Say things that inflame situations, sometimes.”

I snorted. “You think?” 

“I do.” 

“Fuck off.” I sighed. “I mean, at least you’re not a total robot.”

“I am not a robot in the first place.”

“Sure you’re not. Give me a second, I’ll be able to catch a glimpse of the wires.” The scent of her blood was overwhelming. I could taste it in the air. The cloud was beginning to clear in my eyes, but that scent sure wasn’t. “Maybe I will let you go,” I decided. “If you give me some of your blood.”

“I’m not letting you feed off me.”

I growled. “It’s not a question. I’m going to do it. The question is if I let you live.”

“You can’t,” came another small cry from the peanut gallery.

“Pyrim come here and say that to my face. Preferably near my fucking teeth.” 

She sighed. “You can have a cup. No more. And you have to help me get to the couch.”

“Fine.” She held out the outline of a wrist, and I laughed. 

“Oh no. That’s too easy.”

“What? You’ve done it with the angel, haven’t you?”

“Oh, but that was no fun.” 

I sniffed out her neck, then bit down. She didn’t make a noise, didn’t even tremble under my hands as I drank. I was right. Virgin. Achingly sweet. And the faintest hint of something godly. But none of that mattered. 

I’d won. 

“Alright,” she muttered. “That’s enough. Let me go, or I’m going to pass out.”

I didn’t listen at first. She had to tap my shoulder with her good a hand a few more times before I finally fell back with a blood soaked grin. 

“Whatever.” I blinked a few times as the last pieces of ceramic fell out. Her eyes were silver, looking at me with the same intensity as an insect. Pale as a ghost, and reactionless as ever. 

I let her use my weight to get her to the couch. 

“In order to keep myself focused on the task at hand, namely not reacting to the agony I am currently experiencing, I need it,” she said. “It’s not every day one gets mauled by a tiger.” 

“I wasn’t going to ask.” 

“You looked as though you were.”

“I get it. Some weird celestial shit.”

“It was a gift by my ex-patron. I prefer not having to use it.” She sat down slowly, and turned her attention to the cat that was, indeed, hiding behind the couch like a fucking coward. “Pyrim, if you please, could you grab Cassidy and bring her here? I would prefer not having to continue bleeding out.”

He went scurrying off without another word.

“An ex-patron?” I questioned.

“I was taken under her proverbial wing. A warrior of hers. She blessed me with powers, and in exchange I was to follow her orders without question.”

I laughed, hard. 

“I don’t believe I made a joke.”

“No, no. I mean, I get what you’re saying. You just described my life.”

“You’re a demon.”

“Yes.”

“I was under the impression you lacked a patron. Or a conscience. Or any kind of logic to your makeup. You seem to be more of a chaotic concept of evil.”

“You’re really starting this getting along thing off well.”

“Apologies.” 

I rolled my eyes. “There was a time a piece of me was human. I was given a choice, and I took the powers. Yada yada yada, here I am now.” I gestured to all of me, and grinned. “Strong as the sun, living the high life, and pretending I don’t have a contract to fulfill.”

She watched me with those dead fisheyes for a moment, as if deliberating something. 

“What? Do I have something on my face?” I did, actually. Quite a lot of it. Almost all of it was her blood. Just as sweet getting licked off.

“Why are we so combative?”

“You started it.” 

“The antagonism would not occur if it was only me participating. I have been avoiding you as much as physically possible.”

“It’s still your fault,” I said as I leaned back against the couch. She was looking a like a piece of work, I had to say. Pretty broken with that wrist of hers. I could see bone. Her leg was also gutted, and her back was ripped to shreds. She held herself as if nothing were amiss, but those eyes flickered in and out. She must have been screaming inside. I kind of wished I could hear it. “You started all of this from the very beginning. Acting all high and mighty. There’s no one to preform for, and yet you’re like this clockwork doll just listening to that cat. You know, Cass might be a big bag of flour someone doodled a face onto, but she is at least doing something.”

“I didn’t mean to make you feel as though I stole leadership from you.”

“That’s not what I was saying.” I narrowed my eyes. She wouldn’t make a good leader, anyways. 

“I’m not sure what else it could be. It seems you are constantly threatened by me. Acting high and mighty? That is merely who I am. I am researching.”

“What? How to be a more convincing human?”

“Editorial magic.” I blinked. “That girl left many books on various aspects of this world that I didn’t know existed. I’m trying to learn as much as I can. If that monster is ever to return, we will need to be ready. I am only mortal. If I die, then this world would become unstable. I am the weakest link here.”

I chewed the inside of my cheek. “Nah, you’re not.”

“Yes, I am. Objectively, I am physically weaker than two immortal beings.”

“You can hold your own in a fight, though.”

“That is meaningless against the raw power of a creature of void. Do you even know what that monster is? What he’s capable of? She has books on it. Diaries of her memories. I asked for information for my room, and I got it wholeheartedly. He is worse than any of us could imagine.” 

I shrugged. “I assumed he was already pretty bad. I’ve been to hell.”

“This is worse.”

“Alright, whatever, I get it.” I sighed, and looked up at the ceiling. Cassidy ran in seconds later and kneeled against the side of the couch to fix her leg, so I didn’t have to listen to more. But I was still thinking about it while the angel was soothing the girl that didn’t care to be soothed. I’d always assumed she was spending her time drinking coffee for the hell of it. Maybe she had a hot tub or something in her room. I guess I should have known she would have been doing homework she had never been assigned. But I couldn’t say it was useless. There was, at least, one of us trying. And what had I been doing this whole time? Listening to the fucking cat. Staying in my room. Complaining. Mooching off the angel. Accomplishing nothing. 

I groaned. 

“Are you alright?” Cassidy’s head popped up. 

I shoved it away with a hand. 

“I’ve being fucking useless this whole time. It’s just catching up to me is all.”

“You haven’t been useless.” Cassidy inched slowly back up to me. “You’ve been protecting us.”

“There’s nothing here to protect you from!”’

“Well, there is the Seventeenth,” Advisor offered. “If he were to come back after that spat of you and his, if you weren’t here, all of us would unable to fight back. None of us understand the methods of Editorial magic. It’s entirely subjective and based on emotion, rather than any kind of structure or internal logic. Half the time, it doesn’t appear to work, even if Cassidy and I both want it to happen. E herself was unable to capture the power and make it work within her. With so many variables, I can not reliably say I would be able to defend myself against that thing.”

“So I’m defending you against a monster that doesn’t exist.”

“Your presence is important too,” Pyrim muttered. I trained my eyes on him. He was hiding behind Cassidy. “You hold the powers of creation within you. You are just as important as the others.”

“That doesn’t make me useful. Also, hold up a second, when did this become console Shift hour? I’m not the one that needs consoling here. If you’ll notice, I’m perfectly fine. Addi here just went through the wringer.” I looked over at her. Her wounds were entirely healed. “Well. You know what I mean.”

“I think I’d like to go rest in my room,” the Advisor said. “Please do not call me if you wish to fight something again. I would recommend going out into the woods. This pocket dimension isn’t exactly out of bounds, Pyrim, is it?”

“Well, no, technically not. But I still wouldn’t recommend it. What if the Seventeenth is out there? There’s no telling what could happen – there’s owls, and trees, and monsters, and who knows what else besides, I haven’t even kept track of it all-”

“Then have Shift go kill some animals,” she patted my shoulder as she walked past me. “And leave me the hell alone.”

I watched her go.

“You know,” I said. “She’s pretty hot.”

“I don’t think she likes you,” Cassidy said. 

“I don’t think I care.”

The angel left too after that. And then it was just the cat and I.

“Hey,” I said. He jumped. 

“What do you want?”

“Let’s go outside.”

His ear twitched in confusion. Poor kitten didn’t know what to think. 

“Not… Not into the world, right?”

“Just the woods. I could use a jog.”

“Why do you need me?”

“Maybe I like company.” I stretched out against the couch, languidly fell down to the floor on four paws, and shoved the door down to the ground with my shoulder. The outside air was fresh. I breathed in deep. “Or maybe I like that there’s another animal around here.”

The cat followed me like he was about to be disciplined for a mistake on a math test. 

We took off, and I realized that maybe the robot was right. The world out here was bright and vibrant. The dirt beneath my claws parted for me as they dug in. The wind rifled through my fur and cooled me down in a way that a fan just couldn’t. As I rushed between trees, over underbrush, under vines, the rush of being so close made the blood pump hot inside my veins. The air pressure was different outside. The world smelled fresh. I wondered if it had rained recently. Because I could feel it, that energy of the ozone that only happened after a hard storm. 

Was this the Editor’s doing, such a beautifully green forest that burst with life in every second of every moment of the day? If that was the case, then I had to hand I to her. This was exactly what I wanted. She understood on some level, what people wanted from the woods. What parts of it stood out. What the animal in all of us wished that the wild could be. There was an energy from it, something that settled deep in my bones and revitalized me. 

My eyes flicked for the sounds of birds. I stopped without breaking a sweat, and turned to see the small outline of that cat. The kitten was methodically plodding his way through the underbrush, carefully avoiding the roots I hadn’t even blinked over. 

I grumbled, and sat down on a bed of dead leaves. 

“Took you long enough,” I said when he’d finally made it over.

“I’m not sure why you wanted me here,” he said sullenly. “I’m only slowing you down.”

I shrugged. 

“I thought you hated me,” he continued. “I’m the one keeping you from escaping.”

“Hate is a strong word.” I watched him carefully. His ears were folded back as he peered up at me. “What have you really been doing, Pyrim?”

“Trying to deal with the problems that E left behind.”

“You keep saying that.” I stretched forward and captured the animal by the scruff of his neck. He went slack as I went back to walking through the forest. 

“Well, I… I mean it. I am trying to look for ways to solve the problem. I’m not sure where to start, but tracking the Seventeenth seemed like the best.”

“And have you tracked him?” I said through fur.

He didn’t say a word. I sighed, because that was what I figured. 

None of us really knew what the hell was going on anymore. Everything was just kind of broken and confused. Him especially, it seemed. I could imagine what it was like, having everything ripped out from under you. He was lost at sea.

And I had spent all this time pretending that I could keep being my old self. How was I supposed to enjoy my orgies of flesh and blood if the world ended? 

“You’re terrifying, you know,” he muttered. I chuffed softly. “I mean it. You’re… I don’t know why E even picked you. You seem like the most likely thing to end the universe, rather than save it. That kind of power – I – I don’t mean to sound disrespectful, but it’s horrific.” 

“I get that a lot.”

“You just… You just attacked that poor girl. Like it was a game to you. Like you weren’t about to end her life.” 

“I wasn’t.”

“You could have!” He tried to wrestle out o my maw but only manage to angle his head to look me in the eye. “If you had done anything wrong, even one thing, you could have upset the very nature of the universe!” 

“I wouldn’t have.” I looked him right back. “I have self control, kitten. As much as you all like to pretend I don’t.”

“I’d love to see it some day.” 

I placed the cat down once we hit a clearing. “You’re looking at it right now.” Walking out into the sunny air, I stretched out my claws and promptly rolled in the soil and grass. Everything was so fresh, so warm. The only thing that would have sealed the deal here would be a back rub. I closed my eyes. 

“Hey, Pyrim, you wouldn’t by any chance have the ability to grow a pair of hands, would you?” I called back to the confused little black cat. 

“Unfortunately, no.” He slowly plodded out to meet me. “Aren’t you afraid?” He asked. “Of our present situation?”

“I’m not afraid of a lot of things. But I’m definitely not afraid of something I have control over.” I rolled onto my side and flicked my tail. “I kind of realized something. I control this. At least some of it. I can decide what the hell is going to happen. And I choose to keep this world spinning. You people can hate me, think I’m an animal that goes stir crazy or hates being caged. Maybe I am.” I stretched out my claws into the earth. “But in the end, I’m still a dweller of this world. I kind of need it in order to exist. And I don’t want it to stop existing or anything. Addi is important.” I blinked at him. “And maybe I had her wrong. Maybe I had you wrong, too.” 

He was taken aback. His little tail twitched up, it was kind of cute. But he still didn’t approach me. Couldn’t even look me in the eye. 

“That’s very mature of you.”

“People seem to forget just how old I am. Well, that and I think Addi put shit in perspective for me. Did you know she copied my life story? I guess I should be flattered. And you know what? She showed me up to. Doing all this work in saving the world when I was busy trying to annoy her with electric guitar. Surely I should have been building some kind of doomsday device in the meantime.”

“Perhaps it is due to the way you handle yourself that people think you immature.”

“Handle myself?” I chuffed, flicking my tail languidly. “What would you do if you had the rest of eternity to live? Slodge through it, or enjoy the party?”

He didn’t know what to say to that. He found a spot nearby in the sun and primly lay down on his paws. I recognized the careful motion. 

“Still afraid?”

“You’re a tiger.”

“I’m a lot of things.” I lay back with my stomach open to the sun, and closed my eyes. “Pyrim, lemme lay it down for you plain. We’re stuck. None of the magic is going our way, and I think it’s because we can’t seem to stand each other. Maybe I don’t help shit by wanting to eat Addi, but no one in that house is perfect. Cass is …. Cass, Addi doesn’t interact with anyone, and then there’s you. Especially you. I think you wanna be a certain way, the adult of everything, and I get that. But I also think you got a stick up your ass, and you need to calm down, especially since you’re bringing nothing to the table here. What’s the worst that could happen if you chilled the fuck out?”

“The world could end.”

“And has it?”

“No.”

“Do you think, without any reasonable doubt, that it will in the next, hmmm, hour or so?”

“… No.” 

“Then come here and cuddle with me under the sun. It’s nice out.”

His fur brushed my side a moment later. Kitten decided to carefully sit behind me. I rolled over and caught him in my paws. He let out a yelp, but I held firm. And then I licked. 

He grew calmer after the bath. Even gentle, really. He was a kitten, through and through. 

“I don’t know why you’re being so nice to me.” 

“Maybe I think you’re cute.”

He let out the softest mew. 

“You’re not helping your case here,” I chuffed. 

“I’m not interested.”

I groaned in laughter. “Okay, buddy.” 

“What do you think is going to happen?” He muttered. “With you three? With the Seventeenth? You’re old enough to know something, aren’t you?”

“You’re technically older.”

“That doesn’t mean I know more.”

“Well, I’m just a soldier. I don’t know shit.” I looked up at the sky. “If I had to guess… Then I think we fixed things. I really do. What is that big dumb shitstain gonna do now that E’s out of the picture? He can’t fuck up something that doesn’t exist.”

“Maybe he has powers.”

“Did he have powers when you met him?”

“Nothing critical. But… But E is self destructive. There’s no telling what’s happened when I wasn’t looking. She blind sided me with these multi-dimensional creations. The world is so much bigger. And I thought, for a second, that she was truly fighting back when she and him… But… And I… I never did anything to help her with any of it. I just backed away, in the end. She fought her own battles, and she lost. That’s why she’s gone.” He was chewing on his lip. “I set her up for failure. It’s my fault.”

“Okay okay stop the hate train I’m getting bored.” 

“But if he has powers…”

“Then we’ll burn that bridge when we get to it.” I curled up around him. “This isn’t just your fight anymore, kid. This is all of ours. This is what I chose to do, to save myself from the certain doom that E was going to inflict upon me. For better or for worse, we have to work together.”

“You didn’t act like that was the case before…”

“Well you were a little shit before. And I hate being stuck inside. Have you ever stopped to enjoy things, Pyrim?”

“No,” he mumbled. “I suppose not.”

“Then we should do this more often, getting out of there. I was sick of it. All of it.”

He paused. Then his little body sighed. 

“I would like that.”

“Yeah you would.”

“Don’t make it weird.”

“Pyrim, you’re curled up with a demon tiger in the middle of a pocket dimension forest next to a world made by a little girl that created her own personal Satan and then split herself up into chunks to keep herself from getting sexually assaulted every day. I don’t think we could make it any weirder if we tried.”


	18. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Muse: 
> 
> Indila - Dernière Danse (Speechle2s Remix): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDuVQhVqtmc  
PLS&TY - Run Wild: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4d3C3IfUd60

ADVISOR

An Editor is an eldritch being capable of bending space and time at their will. They can control all of creation, whether their own, or otherwise. The reason for their existence is a mystery, but most likely, they are a being like any other, with a birth, life, and death cycle. The only difference is that their ability to bend reality can confuse others trying to observe their biology. So much of them is subjective. Any number of exceptions to the rule are possible. And Editor could choose to live forever. An Editor could choose to never reproduce. An Editor, theoretically, could choose to no longer exist.

When an Editor is old, and bored, or perhaps feeling sentimental, or for any other possible indiscernible reason, they can plant a seed in a sapient creature of their world. That creature will harbor the abilities of an Editor inside them. When the time is right, that Editor will naturally awaken from its dormant state on its own. It will realize its abilities, leave its current world to go off on their own, and build their own, in a void-like nothingness.

Editors are just… Creatures. Normal, biological creatures, native to the world they hail from. Human, for lack of a better term. The only part of them that isn’t, is the power of creation they are bestowed with. Something incomprehensible, and strange, and unlearnable. That level of power cannot be measured. It can’t be fully understood. No matter how hard I try, at least.

And here is where I found myself at an impasse, staring at the page in front of me and looking for the tangible answers that I could not find. The Editor might have found the answers in these books by simply willing them to exist in the first place, but in the end, not even her unlimited power could put the powers and limitations of an Editor between the pages of a book. The reality was such a power was impossible to explain with something as simple as words. And that is what I found the most annoying, and compelling at the same time.

Unfortunately, this meant that there was still no solution to our problem.

I went through cup after cup of coffee, and still, I couldn’t quite seem to make these illogical pieces fit. Unlike the Olympians, Editors are limitless. No matter what text I looked through, that kept staring me in the face. And if E was limitless, then why were we faced with a problem in the first place? We had a God who’s self destruction extended from a place of guilt. But why not make the guilt go away with a wish? In the same way that these books could appear despite no one in all of creation knowing anything about these trans-dimensional creatures, including the Editor herself, why could she not magic a solution out of thin air? Why were we wasting our time in this ridiculous façade of protection?

I threw the book away in the same breath I picked up another. Perhaps I was being too harsh on the God. The child. The human that was so much like myself. Perhaps we had been the solution to the problem.

But then, why did it feel like we’d suddenly made the web so much more fragile?

I could hear Shift in the other room. That blaring variation of the same guitar riff had come to be one of the many staples of my captivity. At least it wasn’t her and Cassidy together. The two got along just fine until one of them found some reason to upset the other. Then the noise would never end, and neither would my headache. I was almost thankful it was just the guitar.

But the other one soon made herself known. The obnoxious humming got progressively louder, until its owner was knocking on my door. My eye twitched.

I slammed the door open. “Yes?” I asked the angel. Cassidy stared at me with her hand raised to begin knocking. She lowered it slowly, then smiled a massive, overwhelming smile as she held up a large plate of chocolate chip cookies.

“I saw you weren’t eating, I made you something that I knew you’d love!”

“I don’t like chocolate chip cookies.”

Her body drooped to a comical degree until she was in danger of dropping the dessert. “What?” She exclaimed loud enough to begin communication with dolphins. “Don’t like cookies? But everybody likes cookies!”

“I would prefer if you did not disturb me. I am currently trying to research a more permanent solution to our problems.”

“But Addi –“

“I am the Advisor,” I interrupted. “I don’t need you calling me Shift’s ridiculous pet names. While you’re at it, feel free to tell the demon that I do not accept these nicknames, nor do I want their use continuing.” I paused. “Actually, do not interact with her at all. Both of you, stay in your rooms. Never talk. It would make my life easier.”

“But Addi,” she whined.

“Leave me alone.”

“How are we supposed to use any cool godly powers if you never even talk to us? We never do _anything _together. And I’m _bored._ All I have to talk to is Shift, and we never even see you! And I’m running out of things to cook!”

“Find something else constructive to do on your own. I don’t need to tell you this. I have no interest in you and the demon getting at each other’s throats all the time, and I highly doubt a third member of your circus would make anything more palatable. You’re an adult. You should act like it.”

Her grip on the tray grew ever more tenuous. “Can’t we, you know, just talk, maybe? Play some party games? Get to know each other? I love twister! Then it would be two against one and Shift can’t keep telling me they’re baby games anymore!”

“No.” I slammed the door shut, paused, then opened it up again. “And don’t intrude on my research again.”

I turned back to my room. It was a simple grey, with a twin sized bed still made from the day I’d got here. My workstation saw more action, the wooden desk already covered in mug stains and the chair worn into a comfortable familiarity from all the nights I’d slept in it. Wall to wall, shelves were lined with thick volumes.

The Editor had not been stingy. I had the opportunity of knowledge of every type. I could sink my teeth into the entirety of a history of a lost civilization if I wanted to, with the confidence that whatever I was ready was objective fact. Everything here need not be cross-referenced, or questioned for bias. The bias was God’s, and what God said, happened.

Which meant history being rewritten, was just history, written. It was impossible to question, because it never happened. Another problem I was quickly growing tired of, but one far more serious, and upsetting.

I sat back down at my desk, and continued to read. Finding an answer there was unlikely. But it made feel as though I was doing something. Cassidy was right about the boredom. The minute my mind had nothing to sink its teeth in, I would go mad here. 

Hours passed. I’d hear the occasional line between the two others outside, perhaps a fearful mew from Pyrim when one of them decided to run after him for the purposes of antagonizing the cat, but that was it. It got quiet enough that I began to wonder just what they were doing. Day after day, I’d become accustomed to the telltale arguments that had become quintessential living beside them. Over the most stupid things, I might add.

The silence was… Worrisome.

But then the argument started, just as I predicted. And grew louder. And louder. Soon it was utterly indiscernible. They were animals. I cursed myself for questioning the silence.

And then the fighting from the other room became impossible to ignore – right at the octave that told me it was about to become violent. Rereading the passage over and over again gleaned nothing.

I slammed my book shut.

The house shuddered. I could hear dishes breaking, in between the freakishly loud screeches of the demon and the whimpering cries of the angel.

Well, if the Seventeenth didn’t kill us, we’d do it ourselves just fine.

There was a faint scratching at my door. I already knew who would be there. Pyrim stared up at me with a puffed up coat and wild eyes. He looked like he’d been through a warzone.

Out in the hallway, the yelling was even louder. Between this and the coffee, I was getting a headache.

“They’re… They’re…” He couldn’t finish his sentence.

“They’re grown adults,” I muttered as I glanced over to the source of the noise. I couldn’t see the living room from here, but I could certainly hear it. “One of them is thousands of years old. She’s in these bloody books. What is it_ this_ time?”

“I don’t know,” he whimpered. He pointed a trembling paw toward the sound of the destruction. The house rattled at the sound of a small explosion. I gripped the doorframe tighter. My eye never seemed to stop twitching, these days. “I just – Cassidy wanted to play some cards, and things just- I can’t go back in there. I barely got out alive.” 

I chewed the inside of my gum as I thought over all the possible quips I could make, but settled for the storming of the living room to confront the ridiculous assault.

Furniture was strewn all over the living room in pieces. The couch had been ripped clean in half. Shift was looking more animal than human today, with a few playing cards crumpled in one hand and homemade shiv of broken glass in the other. The plate of cookies it came from was left broken in pieces by the entrance to the kitchen.

Cassidy was screaming from behind one half of the couch as the other approached, her eyes wide with fright. She rushed past the demon as soon as she saw her opening, then grabbed the television monitor from the other side of the room and held it up like a shield. The demon whirled around on her heels, glass in hand, and began streaking toward the angel with a snarl on her lips. Cassidy was in the process of throwing the whole television, connected to the wall and all, when I coughed.

The two of them stopped short. Shift dropped the glass, but she didn’t have the decency to even look guilty.

“Addi!” Cassidy brightened. She immediately set the television down. “You’re here! Do you want to play poker too?”

“She CHEATS!” The demon snarled. She pointed the bloody, fiery hand that held the glass at the smiling angel. “I just wanted a s_imple _fucking game, and this bitch fucking c_heated!” _Furious and practically burning, she was starting to stride to the now whimpering angel once again. I got in between them with my arms crossed, and glared her down.

“Do you honestly believe your actions are warranted?”

“Yes!” She roared. “Yes, I fucking do! She’s hiding a whole ass extra deck up her sleeve and is slipping herself cards like this is a slapstick western, thinking I ain’t gonna notice when she has six aces!” She tried to get past me and stabbed her finger at the angel that now seemed perfectly fine. “Who the fuck do you think you are? I had actual pride and money on the line and you’re clean sweeping me with fucking PARLOR TRICKS!?”

“I thought it would be funny! The cartoons always make it funny!” She drooped down and rubbed her with an apologetic look. “but it wasn’t funny, I guess. But – but Shift, if I don’t do stuff like this, I never win!”

“THAT’S THE POINT!”

“I can not believe this is what got me pulled out of the room.” I muttered. “This is what we’ve been reduced to. Children. Immature children. You are a renowned demon of old lore and you’re – you’re just as childish as she is.”

“But I don’t want to play poker like that!” Cassidy grabbed me by the shoulders and used me for leverage to implore the girl with wide purple eyes. “I wanted to play twister but you insisted and I had to find _some _way of making it fun!”

“Both of you stop.”

“It’s called getting _good_, sparkler shit for brains,” the demon hissed as she drew closer to glare up at the girl. She held up the cards that showed two aces of clubs and two of hearts right in the angel’s face. “_This _is an insult to the fucking game.”

“I am asking you stop.”

Cassidy put all of her considerable weight on me as she leaned down even closer to inspect the cards. “I don’t see anything wrong with those,” she beamed. “I got a full house.” 

“Stop, please.”

“That’s not even what A FULL HOUSE MEANS!”

I took a deep breath. “If both of you do not stop at this moment in time –“

“Then what does it mean? I wanna know. I love learning new things!”

“DON’T PRETEND YOU WANT TO LEARN HOW TO PLAY NOW!”

“BOTH OF YOU,” I commanded. “SHUT UP.”

Cassidy let go of my shoulders quickly. Shift slowly stalked back to give me room, wiping her mouth as she did. The last flecks of blood, she flicked onto the decimated rug.

“You are _adults,_” I said in disdain as I twisted myself about to address them. “You both should be ashamed of yourselves. Shift, you are thousands of years old. People write _books _about you, did you know that? Did you in all of your years of living _ever _learn how to act like an actual human being?”

She shrugged with a grunt. “The bitch started it.”

“And you, Cassidy, you are a literal angel. Why is it _you’re _participating in this? _Starting _this? I am frankly tired of having to bail you out of Shift’s temper tantrums. If it’s not poker, it’s crying about her saying crayons are not a mature creative tool.”

“They’re for _babies,_” Shift helpfully reminded us with a smirk. Cassidy was seconds from bursting to tears behind me.

“Yes, thank you,” I droned with a chilling look in the demon’s direction. “I appreciate your readdressing of the same problem we have _already had _for the sake of making it worse.” 

“They’re _not _for _babies_!” Cassidy wailed. “They’re fun to draw with and they make me happy!”

Shift rolled her eyes. “You’re such a fuckin’ child on top of being a cheater! Dish out all you want, but I land even a single insult on you and you act like I twisted your ankle. How’d you like it if I_ really_ twisted your ankle? Fuckin’ - I can’t believe this is my life right now.”

“Neither can I,” I muttered. “And here I was under the impression that you had come to a clearer understanding of our position, demon.”

“Listen,” she snarled back. “I might be stuck here, I might not be wrecking the damn walls anymore –“

I took a long sweeping glance at the broken room before settling my gaze back on her.

“But this is different!”

Cassidy whimpered. “I don’t know why we can’t get along! She wants to be mean!”

“You’re an empath, Cassidy,” I muttered. “Surely you can keep things from devolving. Not make them worse.”

“We just don’t mesh,” Shift snarled. “I don’t know why the fuck this doesn’t work. I don’t have anything against ya, Ad, but this shit ain’t working. You never leave your room, Cassidy makes me want to fucking end myself and Pyrim -”

“What did I do?!” The cat whimpered, then flinched back behind my legs when she hissed at him.

“You could at least try!” The angel squawked at Shift.

“I a_m _trying! When I’m not getting mad, you’re nonstop bugging me!” The demon strode forward and pointed a finger into the girl’s ample chest. “You’re the one that keeps coming to me and asking me to play your stupid games – you need a thicker skin if you wanna survive, you got that? And you ain’t doing shit for that. How are you supposed to be part of a god if you freak out over every little thing?”

“How are you supposed to be a god if you can’t even have a little compassion?” Cassidy cried, her cheeks tearstained and her breath shallow with the beginnings of a wail. I rolled my eyes. “I know you have it in you, but all you use is anger!”

“I’m here to control the _power _of a God, you snivelling little fuckwad, not play prissy games with you and laugh when you CHEAT –“

“I thought you were nice when I met you.” The angel struggled to dry her eyes. “You reminded me of Ro. But now you’re just being mean.”

“Oh stuff it with your talk of Rowan,” the demon hissed. “That fear demon is no better than you. A fuckin’ bleeding heart through and through, tamed by humanity. You’re an angel, you could shatter walls with your voice, and look what he made of you. I couldn’t believe _that’s _who raised you, but now that I look at you, I can see it right there in front of me. The pussy-whipped emotional bullshit. You two get along like peas in a fuckin’ pod.”

“Rowan is _not _like that!”

I took a step back to address the both of them, but they had already descended into another argument and had forgotten the rest of the world even existed. I felt like tearing my hair out right then and there.

There was a soft touch against my leg. I looked down to see the cat with his fur still on end. “What you want?” I murmured.

“Safety.” He jumped when Shift snarled, and quickly curled up behind my legs. “When either of them get like this, I’m always afraid they’re going to turn it on me. Especially the demon.”

“It’s as though we’ve learned nothing from Shift’s assault on me,” I sighed. “And here I thought that there was some kind of peace found in the understanding that we were all stuck here. Weeks. Literal weeks. And we can’t seem to acclimatize to each other. This is ridiculous. It’s as though it’s gotten worse.”

“We can’t leave them like this,” Pyrim whimpered as I turned to walk away.

“They’re both immortal,” I said dismissively. “Do you really think it’s a good idea to let a human get in the way of a fight between an angel and a demon? They’ll be back to making far too much noise and drinking blood in no time. And when that’s over, then we can try to push our magic together to bring the cottage back to a less catastrophic state. If we still even have that synergy to do so.” I sighed. 

The cat followed close at my heels. I could hear the faint padding of his tiny paws against the wooden floor as I tried to get out of the crossfire and back to my room. But I stopped in the hallway. With yelling like that, I would never get anything done in my room. But I couldn’t leave this bloody house. I turned to Pyrim. His ears shot up.

“I’m going to the basement. Would you care to join me?”

He blinked in surprise. “What? Really? I thought – I thought you preferred me out of your way.”

There were questions I needed answered. “I know I’d not want to be subjected to that screaming anymore than I have to, I’d imagine you feel the same.” I found the metal door that led down to the chilling cellar, and tilted my head for him to follow. “Let’s remove ourselves for the moment.”

The cat’s tail was firmly upright as he descended ahead of me down the cement staircase and into the bowels of the cottage.

“I don’t know how E managed to get three people that work so terribly together,” he called over his shoulder. While it was easy for his eyes to work in the darkness, I had to find the light switch blindly against the whitewashed wall. The small bulb lit up overhead, revealing the small room that appeared perfectly ordinary, and boring. There were a few cardboard boxes here and there, a stack of papers in one, some VCH tapes in another. The room itself was mottled white, and when one stood on the cold cement floor and took in the rough white painted walls and the floating dust motes, one got the strong feeling of it being unfinished.

However, there was that door in the back. The one hidden away by several cardboard boxes that I had moved out of the way when moving down here exhaustion the books in my room and having nothing left to do but explore.

“It’s cold in here,” the cat observed. He brushed himself up against me and threaded through my legs as I struggled to get the door open. I frowned as I looked down.

“You’re not making this any easier.”

He jumped, and pulled away. “Sorry, force of habit.”

I sighed, pushed the heavy metal door open, and stepped into the cold white hallway. Similar to a hospital, this long corridor had the same scent of sterilization. The lights above us, large panels that never turned off, flickered faintly as we stepped in. I closed the door behind us, and continued walking.

“I never get used to this place,” he muttered. “It reminds me too much of history.”

“Perhaps E thought that history was worth remembering.”

“I doubt it. That life she left behind, she left behind for a reason. I don’t understand why she’d want to keep this little slice here.”

“I don’t understand a lot of things about the Editor. The more I read about her and the creature that she is, the less I come to understand the logic behind it. Meeting her didn’t answer much, either. She seemed… Childish, despite her age. We’re here.” I stopped outside a door made of dark mahogany. Ornate, filled with filigree and imagery of leaves, it was the most out of place thing one could imagine. It was also one of the only doors that was unlocked. And no matter how hard I tried, I could never seem to pick the lock of any of the others.

I was not about to bring a destructive fire demon into the depths of the physical manifestation of the Editor’s mind, either. We didn’t need Shift trying to open these doors.

The door creaked slowly open to reveal one of my favorite rooms in the cottage. I say it was my favorite, because it was unknown to the other two. But it was also well loved for the rows upon rows of old books. It smelled like knowledge in here. I could still see the remnants of the last time I’d spent nearly a full day in here – the reading nook in between two shelves had a small side table pulled beside it, where a forgotten coffee mug sat empty. Next to it was the last book I’d read.

I picked up the text on merfolk history, then put it back into its proper shelf.

“Do you know why this place exists?” I asked.

The cat continued further into the library while I stood there by one of the shelves, watching him. The glow from the chandelier above us cloaked the both of us in a warm glow. Pyrim’s fur looked almost brown. “I always assumed it was because she wanted to give you the opportunity to learn about the entirety of the world at your own pace, rather than kill you with all the knowledge of the universe.” He let out a soft hissing breath. “But then, E doesn’t usually think that far ahead. I don’t know. It could just be an archive, for all I know.”

“You don’t know a lot of things.” I approached the cat from behind. “And yet you were meant to be E’s confidante.”

His ear flicked, and his head craned around to see me approach. Fur slowly standing up, he took a few steps back. I paused.

“I’m more in the dark than you could possibly understand,” he said. “You three – she talked to you. Explained things to you. She made a scheme to change the very nature of reality, and she didn’t think to tell me. She wanted me in the dark. I don’t… I don’t know why I’m here, anymore.”

I crouched down to look the animal in the eye. “So you know less than these books, is that it? It would be useless to question you?”

“Yes.” He took another couple steps back as his ears flattened. “What are you trying to do, Advisor?”

“I’m trying to do my part in saving the world,” I said.

“I don’t like it when your eyes are silver.”

“Apologies,” I said, though they didn’t change. “I am simply sick of hiding away in the dark. But it’s been months, Pyrim. Months. And yet, I have heard nothing from you. You are not any closer to finding a solution, are you? None of us are. We are all trapped, waiting for the Seventeenth to make our next month, and getting progressively worse at working together.”

The cat whimpered. His tail tucked in between his legs, and his ears flattened against his skull. He took another few steps back, but I didn’t follow him. I stood, instead, and turned my attention back to the books that lined this row of the archives.

“I’ve learned about you,” I said. “That which you would not tell me. And the Seventeenth, the parasite that he is. The Editor. As much as I can. But none of these convoluted tales that rewrite history in the favor of a God do anything about the problem we are faced with now. Nor do they offer any way as to how you could do _anything _to rectify them. Pyrim.” I turned back to him. “You are, objectively, useless.”

He said nothing. He didn’t need to.

I couldn't keep my eyes up any longer. They left, and rubbed my face as I turned away from him, ashamed of myself.

“You couldn’t solve this if you wanted to,” I muttered.

“I’m trying.”

“Trying what?”

“To find E, the Seventeenth, an answer – I don’t know!” His meows were quiet, and despairing. “I even talked to the owl, but he was – he was less than helpful.”

My mind wandered to the passage on the previous world. “The auger. What did he say?”

His eyes narrowed in thought as he tilted his head from side to side. “He… I wouldn’t trust any of what he says, to be honest.”

“What did he say, cat?”

“In between all of the hooting, and the eating of my own vomit, that I’m supposed to somehow save the world.”

I stared at him.

“You.”

“Me. Technically. But then he said to look to you – er – the three, specifically. Again, he’s an old monster and I don’t know what he actually meant. Half the time he was just hooting. And picking at my vomit, did I mention that?”

I rubbed my chin as I turned back around to the books around us. “What else did he say?” I asked as I pulled out another and began flipping through pages.

“That you three were idiots,” he muttered. I turned my gaze up, and he faltered. “And competent.”

I went back to flipping pages.

“That peace was impossible,” he continued. “And that it was antiquated. Then something about eternal night.”

“That sounds meaningless.”

“Exactly! That’s why I thought it wasn’t worth mentioning. Every time I’ve spoken to him, it’s been the same phrases. That I need to be a guide, that I need to be strong. Right, like I’ve ever been either of those. I’m useless as a confidante.”

“Has the Owl ever made important predictions before?”

“I never bothered to talk to him before.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“I don’t _know. _He was E’s creation, and he was close to E. Maybe he talked to her.”

“There’s nothing in the book about it,” I muttered into the pages. “It’s just his etymology, Old Mother Tree, the old Fly Ren. No prophecy – he’s capable of it, it loves to talk for hours about how mysterious he is but there’s nothing specific that actually shows it.” I felt a chill run up my spine. No, a part of myself kept whispering in my ear. Not nothing. Scrubbed clean. Like most of these archives, like most of the books I had been given. Carefully tailored to be correct. And it was. Because if a God says it’s correct, then it is. And there is nothing mere mortals can do about it. Rewritten history becomes just history.

“I’m not surprised,” the cat sighed.

He was just accepting it. But I suppose I couldn’t blame him. E left him out of the loop in a lot of things, just as she left these books empty of any meaningful information. But why? What possible reason could she have for shooting herself in the foot? How did she expect me to help her?

Maybe I wasn’t. Maybe this was all a façade. Maybe we were all just useless sheep waiting for the wolf to figure out how to get into our pens.

What was her game?

I closed the book with a deep frown. “How much reign does the Seventeenth have over this world, exactly? Does he have Editorial abilities? Anything at all?”

“None that I know of,” the cat offered. “He can teleport, just like the rest of us. Know where E would be, where I might be, I think. Sometimes I wonder if we all have homing signals.” He coughed. “But other than that… I don’t think so. He just soaks up the Editor’s negativity. That’s what made him… He.”

“Negativity. Yes.” I turned to set the book down, and leaned against one of the shelves with my arms crossed. “But is that all he can do?”

“I beg your pardon? I told you what he could do.”

“The Editor has never been able to best him because she believes she does not deserve to. She subconsciously puts him at a level above her in order to facilitate her own destruction. Therefore, his powers are technically limitless. He is invulnerable. Shift, a fire demon from lore that extends far deeper than I expected, could not defeat him. Not to mention, his connections to negativity. It’s not only possible, it’s more than likely that he must be doing something, under our very noses, right now, and we are simply unaware of it. And there is nothing we can do it about.” I took one more look around the library. “Because E never wanted us to do anything in the first place.”

Above our heads, the screaming was growing bad enough to be heard several levels below. The cat and I looked up together at the high backed ceiling, then back down at each other.

“And we are not prepared,” I said. “We never will be. Pyrim, your Owl may be right. Perhaps you are our only hope.”

“How do you figure?” He said in a deadpan tone.

“Perhaps we’ve been looking at this all wrong from the very beginning,” I sighed, and closed my eyes. “All I have at this point, is speculation. Otherwise, we are unequivocally, irrevocably, fucked.”

**Author's Note:**

> Did you know the world is ending? 
> 
> “When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things.” - Corinthians 13.11


End file.
